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Madame, who had not betrayed the least embarrassment when she and her café were apostrophized in Gounod's impassioned strains, was utterly bewildered by Poluski's wealth. Not once in many years had he owned so much at one time, since he always drew small sums on account of his pictures and kept himself going hand-to-mouth fashion.
Beaumanoir called to mind the quiet confidence in Poluski's voice when describing the potency of that curious cigar-shaped bomb which so narrowly escaped being hurled at the mutineers during the fight. "There is a lot more in Poluski's make-up than one would give him credit for at a glance," said he. "I understand he was really a firebrand in his youth," remarked the Princess.
Joan was just leaving the pretty hotel at Barbizon, meaning to put in some hours of work after a distracted morning, when Felix emerged from the interior of a ramshackle cab that had carried him from Melun to the edge of the forest. Now, a cab drive of several miles, plus a journey from Paris, was a sufficiently rare event in Poluski's life to make Joan stare.
Poluski's wizened cheeks puckered into a grin. He glanced at the easel and thence to the picture on the wall. "Perfectly, my dear Joan," he said. "And, by the bones of Kosciusko, you have chosen a proper subject, The Fortune Teller! Were you filling our warrior with dreams of empire? Well, well, I don't know which is more potent with monarchs, woman or dynamite.
Beaumanoir, discreetly peeping through the window over Poluski's shoulder, saw something that perplexed him. "I say, Alec," he exclaimed, "I thought you told me that Stampoff's man Bosko was a thoroughly reliable sort of chap." "I have always found him so." "Well, just at present he looks jolly like a deserter. He is making a speech to the mob and tearing off his uniform obligato.
And, in a perfect frenzy of excitement, he threw himself back in his chair and amazed another group of cosmopolitan diners by singing. But this time Joan did not care who stared or whispered. She sat there, a beautiful statue, sorely stricken, and not daring to believe that the hour of blessedness promised in Poluski's song would be vouchsafed after many years of pain.
For that was Felix Poluski's weakness. He could not use his diabolical invention an anarchist in theory, in practice he would not harm a fly. "I think just as much of Joan as you!" he blazed back at the pallid man whose next step promised to lead to the grave. "I am King here, not you! Keep yourself and Joan out of harm's way, and don't interfere! Stand flat against the wall, both of you!
From Joan's superior height his hump was accentuated till it showed above the top of his head, and the girl was conscious, though she resolutely closed her eyes to the fact, that the admiring glances with which she was favored by some of her fellow passengers were somewhat modified by the humorous incongruity of Poluski's appearance.
"Are you quite sure they are the Prince and Princess?" she asked, scanning Poluski's wrinkled face to learn if he had not been playing some sorry jest. "Quite sure," said he. "But " "You wonder why they condescend to mix with the common horde? Learn then, my Joan, that a French booking clerk is a skeptic who can be convinced only by the sight of money.
The excited babble going on without was incomprehensible and therefore alarming, nor did the polite assurances of the officer, as he bent in the saddle and peered in at the window while he aired his best French, serve to still this fresh tumult in her veins. "What is he saying?" she asked Felix, turning her frightened eyes from the urbane personage on horseback to Poluski's intent face.
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