“Ah?” she cried, nodding her head and laughing. “I thought as much. You’ve brought me out here to flirt with me. I wonder if you’ll kiss me—eh?” she asked mischievously.
“I will, if you tempt me too much,” I said threateningly. “And then the report you’ve spread about will be the truth.”
She laughed merrily and tapped my hand with her fan.
“I never can get the better of you, dear old uncle,” she declared. “You always have the last word, and you’re such a delightfully old-fashioned person. Now let’s try and be serious.” And she settled herself and, turning to me, added: “Why do you wish to know about Geoffrey Hamborough?”
“For several reasons,” I said. “First, I think Your Highness knows me quite well enough to be aware that I am your very sincere friend.”
“My best friend,” she declared quickly; her manner changed in an instant from merry irresponsibility to deep earnestness. “That night on the railway platform at Moscow you saved me making a silly fool of myself. It was most generous of the Emperor to forgive me. I know how you pleaded for me. He told me so.”
“I am your friend,” I replied. “Now, as to the future. You tell me that you find all the Court etiquette irksome, and that you are antagonistic to this host of young men about you. You are, in brief, sorry that you are back in Russia. Is that so?”
“It is so exactly.”
“And how about Prince Urusoff—eh?”
“I haven’t seen him for fully three months, and I don’t even know where he is. I believe he’s with his regiment, the 21st Dragoons of White Russia, somewhere away in the Urals. I heard that the Emperor sent him there. But he certainly need not have done so. I found him only a foolish young boy.”