Part 7 (2/2)

”You must not coo Do you know any more than Israel Kensky told?” she asked, a little anxiously

”Nothing,” he replied in truth

She offered her hand, and he bent over it

”Good night, Mr Hay Do not forget, I hts of the car disappear and walked quickly back to old Kensky's rooms Russia and his appointment had a new fascination

CHAPTER IV

THE PRINCE WHO PLANNED

Few people knew or knoerful a anoff really was in these bad old days He waved his hand and thousands of men and women disappeared He beckoned and he had a thousand sycophantic suppliants

In the days before he becae, he went upon a diploh Macedonia, the dark and sinister state He was sent by none, but he had a reason, for Dimitrius, his soher Balkan state and Serganoff went doithout authority to terrify his soh Macedonia the exquisite young man was led by sheer curiosity to make certain inquiries into the dos

He had hardly made hin Minister

”Highness,” said the suavehave you been in the capital?”

”Some four days, Excellency,” said the Prince

”That is ninety-six hours too long,” said the minister ”There is a train for the north in forty minutes You will catch that, and God be with you!”

Prince Serganoff did not argue but went out from the ornate office, and the Minister called a hness does not leave by the four o'clock train, cut his throat and carry the body to one of the common houses of the town--preferably that of the man Do of death”

”Excellency,” said the anoff in High Macedonia and were a little anxious Had they known him better they would have feared him less He did not leave by the four o'clock train, but by a special which was across the frontier by four He sat in a cold sweat till the frontier post was past

This s of life

He bought his hosiery in Paris, his shoes in Vienna, his suits and cravats in New York; and it is said of hie to London--the Mecca of those who love good leather work--for the characteristic attache cases which were so indispensable to the Chief of Gendarmerie of the Marsh Town

He carried with him the irrepressible trimness and buoyancy of youth, with his smooth, sallow face, his neat black moustache and his shapeliness of outline An exquisite of exquisites, he had never felt the draughts of life or experienced its rude buffetings

His perfectly-appointed flat in the Morskaya had been modelled to his taste and fancy It was a suite wherein you pressed buttons and cos happened You opened s and boiled water, or suentle pressure you applied to a mother-of-pearl stud set in silver plate which, by some miracle, was alithin reach

He had an entire suite converted to bath-rooms, where his masseur, his manicurist and his barber attended him daily He had conscripted uised its application, that you lish clock which ticked in the spacious hall, or realize that the soft light which ca fro more up to date than the hundred most life-like candles which filled the sockets

Yet this suave gentleant enius as the finest judge in the capital of Pekinese dogs, and had been known to give a thousand-rouble fee to the veterinary surgeon who performed a minor operation on his favourite Borzoi, had another aspect He who shi+vered at the first chill winds of winter and wrapped himself in sables whenever he drove abroad after the last days of September, and had sent men and women to the bleakness of Alexandroithout a qualm; he who had to fortify himself to face an American dentist (his fees for e middle-class fas with the half-crazed men and women who strayed across the frontier which divided conviction froanda