"You see in a way you're really responsible. You remember, long ago, telling me to look after Markovitch when I talked all that rot about caring for Vera?" "Yes--I remember very well indeed." "In a way it all started from that. You put me on to seeing Markovitch in quite a different light. I'd always thought of him as an awfully dull dog with very little to say for himself, and a bit loose in the top-story too. I thought it a terrible shame a ripping woman like Vera having married him, and I used to feel sick with him about it. Then sometimes he'd look like the devil himself, as wicked as sin, poring over his inventions, and you'd fancy that to stick a knife in his back might be perhaps the best thing for everybody. "Well, you explained him to me and I saw him different--not that I've ever got very much out of him. I don't think that he either likes me or trusts me, and anyway he thinks me too young and foolish to be of any importance--which I daresay I am. He told me, by the way, the other day, that the only Englishman he thought anything of was yourself--" "Very nice of him," I murmured. "Yes, but not very flattering to me when I've spent months trying to be fascinating to him. Anyhow, although I may be said to have failed in one way, I've got rather keen on the pursuit. If I can't make him like me I can at least study him and learn something. That's a leaf out of your book, Durward. You're always studying people, aren't you?" "Oh, I don't know," I said. "Yes, of course you are. Well, I'll tell you frankly I've got fond of the old bird. I don't believe you could live at close quarters with any Russian, however nasty, and not get a kind of affection for him. They're so damned childish." "Oh yes, you could," I said. "Try Semyonov."