“Now tell me all the news,” I said.
“News?” he asked. He looked uncomfortable, and I saw at once that he had come to confide something in me. “What sort of news? Political?”
“Anything.”
“Well, politics are about the same. They say there’s going to be an awful row in February when the Duma meets—but then other people say there won’t be a row at all until the war is over.”
“What else do they say?”
“They say Protopopoff is up to all sorts of tricks. That he says prayers with the Empress and they summon Rasputin’s ghost.... That’s all rot of course. But he does just what the Empress tells him, and they’re going to enslave the whole country and hand it over to Germany.”
“What will they do that for?” I asked.
“Why, then, the Czarevitch will have it—under Germany. They say that none of the munitions are going to the Front, and Protopopoff’s keeping them all to blow up the people here with.”
“What else?” I asked sarcastically.
“No, but really, there’s something in it, I expect.” Henry looked serious and important. “Then on the other hand, Clutton-Davies says the Czar’s absolutely all right, dead keen on the war and hates Germany... I don’t know—but Clutton-Davies sees him nearly every day.”