usen't to think
so. I've grown older, haven't I?"

He had.

"What do you think of _Discipline_ now?" I asked.

"Oh, Lord!" he blushed, "I was a young cuckoo."

"And what about knowing all about Russia after a week?"

"No--and that reminds me!" He drew his chair closer to my bed. "That's
what I've come to talk about. Do you mind if I gas a lot?"

"Gas as much as you like," I said.

"Well, I can't explain things unless I do.... You're sure you're not too
seedy to listen?"

"Not a bit. It does me good," I told him.

"You see in a way you're really responsible. You remember, long ago,
telling me to look after Markovitch when I talked all that rot about
caring for Vera?"

"Yes--I remember very well indeed."

"In a way it all started from that. You put me on to seeing Markovitch
in quite a different light. I'd always thought of him as an awfully dull
dog with very little to say for himself, and a bit loose in the
top-story too. I thought it a terrible shame a ripping woman like Vera
having married him, and I used to feel sick with him about it. Then
sometimes he'd look like the devil himself, as wicked as sin, poring
over his inventions, and you'd fancy that to stick a knife in his back
might be perhaps the best thing for everybody.

"Well, you explained him to me and I saw him different--not that I've
ever got very much out of him. I don't think that he either likes me or
trusts me, and anyway he thinks me too young and foolish to be of any
importance--which I daresay I am. He told me, by the way, the other day,
that the only Englishman he thought anything of was yourself--"

"Very nice of him," I murmured.

"Yes, but not very flattering to me when I've spent months trying to be
fascinating to him. Anyhow, although I may be said to have failed in one
way, I've got rather keen on the pursuit. If I can't make him like me I
can at least study him and learn something. That's a leaf out of your
book, Durward. You're always studying people, aren't you?"

"Oh, I don't know," I said.

"Yes, of course you are. Well, I'll tell you frankly I've got fond of
the old bird. I don't believe you could live at close quarters with any
Russian, however nasty, and not get a kind of affection for him. They're
so damned childish."

"Oh yes, you could," I said. "Try Semyonov."

"I'm coming to him in a minute," said Bohun. "Well, Markovitch was most
awfully unhappy. That's one thing one saw about him at once--unhappy of
cour