"What do you think of _Discipline_ now?" I asked.
"Oh, Lord!" he blushed, "I was a young cuckoo."
"And what about knowing all about Russia after a week?"
"No--and that reminds me!" He drew his chair closer to my bed. "That's
what I've come to talk about. Do you mind if I gas a lot?"
"Gas as much as you like," I said.
"Well, I can't explain things unless I do.... You're sure you're not too
seedy to listen?"
"Not a bit. It does me good," I told him.
"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.
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