When in Warsaw he busied himself on behalf of the ladies,
and went so far as to take Miss Mangles for a drive in his sleigh. To
Netty he showed a hundred attentions.
"I cannot understand," she said, "why everybody is so kind to me."
"It is because you are so kind to everybody," he answered, with that air
of appearing to mean more than he said, which he seemed to reserve for
Netty.
"I do not understand Mr. Deulin," said Netty to her uncle one day. "Why
does he stay here? What is he doing here?"
And Joseph P. Mangles merely stuck his chin forward, and said in his
deepest tones:
"You had better ask him!"
"But he would not tell me."
"No."
"And Mr. Cartoner," continued Netty, "I understood he was coming back,
but he does not seem to come. No one seems to know. It is so difficult
to get information about the merest trifles. Not that I care, of course,
who comes and who goes."
"Course not," said Mangles.
After a pause, Netty looked up again from her work.
"Uncle," she said, "I was wondering if there was anything wrong in
Warsaw."
"What made you wonder that?"
"I do not know. It feels, sometimes, as if there were something wrong.
Mr. Cartoner went away so suddenly.
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