"You are clever, and you are English," he said. "Would you not help an old man to save this young life from misery and sorrow?"
Malcolm Hay looked at him in astonishment.
"To save whom?" he asked.
"The Grand Duchess," replied Kensky moodily. "It is for her I fear, more than for her father."
Malcolm Hay was on the point of blurting out the very vital truth that there was nothing in the wide world he would not do to save that wonderful being from the slightest ache or pain, but thought it best to dissemble the craziest of infatuations that ever a penniless and obscure engineer felt for a daughter of the Imperial House of Russia. Instead he murmured some conventional expression of his willingness.
"It is in this club that the danger lies," said Kensky. "I know these societies, Mr. Hay, and I fear them most when they look most innocent."
"Could you not get the police to watch?" asked Malcolm.
Had he lived in Russia, or had he had the experience which was his in the following twelve months, he would not have asked so absurd a question.
"No, no," said Kensky, "this is not a matter for the police. It is a matter for those who love her."
