"But it is amusing, surely?"
"Perhaps I am old-fashioned," he sighed. "I rather resent being driven into the crooked ways."
"You are thinking only of yourself, then?"
"To be perfectly truthful," he assured her, "I was thinking very little of myself. I am afraid for you."
"But why for me?"
"Because you are reckless," he answered. "Your brother may be the cleverest adventurer who ever kept the police at arm's length, but there is always the risk. You cannot go on playing a part for ever. You may hide at the Milan Court and call yourself what you will, and the chances are with you, but to borrow some one else's identity, to advertise yourself as the companion of a reigning princess, to occupy a position of trust and favour in her household and help to receive her guests, how long do you think that will go on?"
She laughed at him but her eyes were full of kindness.
"You speak only of my brother's cleverness," she said. "Is that because I am a woman? Let me assure you, my dear friend, in many ways I am his equal. Your fears are exaggerated. I am right, am I not, when I assume that your present position is new to you?"
"It is," Aaron Rodd confessed. "Until these last few weeks—until the day, in fact, when I first saw you in the Embankment Gardens and Harvey Grimm sauntered, an hour later, into my office—I have lived miserably, perhaps, but honestly."
She laughed once more in his face.