He was eyeing them with suspicion

He was eyeing them with suspicion, not wholly unjustified, for the patent respectability of Cherry's Derby hat was no compensation for the armoury belted about his rotund middle.
But when the man's eyes fell upon Malinkoff, his whole demeanour changed, and he advanced with outstretched hand.
"General Malinkoff," he said, "you remember me; I entertained you at----"
"At Kieff! Of course!" smiled Malinkoff. "I did not know the Ivan Petroff of Moscow was the Ivan of the Ukraine."
"Now, gentlemen, what is your wish?" asked the man, and Malinkoff explained the object of the visit.
Petroff looked serious.
"Of course, I will do anything her Highness wishes," he said. "I saw her yesterday, and she told me that she had a dear friend in St. Basil." Malcolm tried to look unconcerned under Malinkoff's swift scrutiny and failed. "But I think she wished you to meet another--guest."
He paused.
"He has gone into Moscow to-night against my wishes," he said with trouble in his face; "such an old man----"
"Kensky?" said Malcolm quickly.
"Kensky." The tone was short. "I told him that no good would come of it--her Highness was married to-night."
Malcolm took a step forward, but it was an unsteady step.
"Married?" he repeated. "To whom was she married?"
Petroff looked down at the floor as though he dare not meet the eye of any man and say so monstrous a thing.
"To the servant Boolba," he said.
Chapter 15 The Red Bride
Irene Yaroslav came back to the home which had always been associated in her mind with unhappy memories, to meet the culminating disaster which Fate had wrought. Whatever thoughts of escape she may have treasured in secret were cut into by the sure knowledge that she was watched day and night, and were now finally terminated by the discovery that the big apartment house, a suite of which Boolba had taken for her disposal when he had ousted her from her father's house, was practically in possession of the Soviet Guard.
She drove to the palace with an undisguised escort of mounted men, one on either side of the carriage, one before and one behind, and went up the stairs--those grim stairs which had frightened her as a child and had filled her nights with dreams, passing on her way the now empty bureau which it had been Boolba's whim for her to keep.
Maria Badisikaya, an officer of the Committee for the Suppression of the Counter-Revolution, formerly an operative in the Moscow Cigarette Company, was waiting in the small drawing-room which still retained some of its ancient splendour. Maria was a short, stumpy woman with a slight moustache and a wart on her chin, and was dressed in green satin, cut low to disclose her generous figure. About her stiff, coal-black hair was a heavy diamond bandeau. She was sitting on a settee, her feet hardly touching the ground, cleaning her nails with a little pocket-knife as the girl entered. Evidently this was her maid of honour, and she could have laughed.
The woman glowered up at her and jumped briskly to her feet, closing the knife and slipping it into her corsage.
"You are late, Irene Yaroslav," she said shrilly. "I have something better to do than to sit here waiting for a boorjoo. There is a committee meeting at ten o'clock to-night. How do you imagine I can attend that? Come, come!"