He ordered a cup of coffee in Russian, and sought his cigarette-case.  He opened it and laid it on the table in front of Cartoner.  He was a fair young man, with an energetic manner and the clear, ruddy complexion of a high-born Briton.

“Englishman?” he said, with an easy and friendly nod.

“Yes,” answered Cartoner, taking the proffered cigarette.  His manner was oddly stiff.

“Thought you were,” said the other, who, though his clothes were English and his language was English, was nevertheless not quite an Englishman.  There was a sort of eagerness in his look, a picturesque turn of the head—­a sense, as it were, of the outwardly pictorial side of existence.  He moved his chair, in order to turn his back on a Russian officer who was seated near, and did it absently, as if mechanically closing his eye to something unsightly and conducive to discomfort.  Then he turned to his coffee with a youthful spirit of enjoyment.

“All this would be mildly amusing,” he said, “at say any other hour of the twenty-four, but at three in the morning it is rather poor fun.  Do you succeed in sleeping in these German schlafwagens?”

“I can sleep anywhere,” replied Cartoner, and his companion glanced at him inquiringly.  It seemed that he was sleepy now, and did not wish to talk.

“I know Alexandrowo pretty well,” the other volunteered, nevertheless, “and the ways of these gentlemen.  With some of them I am quite on friendly terms.  They are inconceivably stupid; as boring as—­the multiplication-table.  I am going to Warsaw; are you?  I fancy we have the sleeping-car to ourselves.  I live in Warsaw as much as anywhere.”

He paused to feel in his pocket, not for his cigarettes this time, but for a card.

“I know who you are,” said Cartoner, quietly:  “I recognized you from your likeness to your sister.  I was dancing with her forty-eight hours ago in London.”

“Wanda?” inquired the other, eagerly.  “Dear old Wanda!  How is she?  She was the prettiest girl in the room, I bet.”

He leaned across the table.

“Tell me,” he said, “all about them.  But, first, tell me your name.  Wanda writes to me nearly every day, and I hear about all their friends—­the Orlays and the others.  What is your name?  She is sure to have made mention of it in her letters.”

“Reginald Cartoner.”

“Ah!  I have heard of you—­but not from Wanda.”

He paused to reflect.

“No,” he added, rather wonderingly, after a pause.  “No, she never mentioned your name.  But, of course, I know it.  It is better known out of England than in your own country, I fancy.  Deulin—­you know Deulin?—­has spoken to us of you.  No doubt we have dozens of other friends in common.  We shall find them out in time.  I am very glad to meet you.  You say you know my name—­yes, I am Martin Bukaty.  Odd that you should have recognized me from my likeness to Wanda.  I am very glad you think I am like her.  Dear old Wanda!  She is a better sort than I am, you know.”