“Danger!” I echoed. “What danger?”
“There is a grave danger,” he asserted firmly. “I have watched, as is my duty, and I know. Her Highness endeavours all she can to evade my vigilance, for naturally it is not pleasant to be watched while carrying on a flirtation. But she does not know what I have discovered concerning this stranger with whom she appears to have fallen so deeply in love. They must be parted, m’sieur—parted at once, before it is too late.”
“But what have you discovered?” I asked.
“One astounding and most startling fact,” was his slow, deliberate reply; “a fact which demands their immediate separation.”
Chapter Seventeen.
Her Highness is Outspoken.
“Now, Uncle Colin! It’s really too horrid of you to spy upon me like that! I had no idea you were behind us! I knew old Dmitri was there—he watches me just as a cat watches a mouse. But I never thought you would be so nasty and mean!” And the girl in her fresh white gown stood at the window of the drawing-room drumming impatiently upon the pane with the tips of her long, white fingers, for it was raining outside.
“My dear Natalia,” I said paternally, standing upon the white goat-skin hearthrug, and looking across at her; “I did not watch you intentionally. I travelled by the same train as your friend, and I saw you meet him. Really,” I laughed, “you looked a most interesting pair as you walked together down Queen’s Road. I left you at the corner of Western Road and went on to the ‘Métropole.’”