on the electric light.
"Nadine," she called, in her grave, melodious voice, and a young girl, almost a child, sprang from a low divan hidden in a corner. "Nadine, take off my cloak and unfasten my hair. Then you can leave me: it is late, and I am tired."
The little maid obeyed, helped her mistress to put on a silken dressing gown, and loosened the masses of her hair. The Princess passed a hand across her brow, as if to brush away a headache.
"Before you go, get a bath ready for me; I think that would rest me."
Ten minutes later Nadine crept back like a shadow, and found the Princess standing dreamily on the balcony, inhaling deep breaths of the pure night air. The child kissed the tips of her mistress's fingers. "Your bath is quite ready," she said, and then withdrew.
A few more minutes passed, and Princess Sonia, half undressed, was just going into her dressing-room when suddenly she turned and went back to the middle of the bedroom which she had been on the point of leaving.
"Nadine," she called, "are you still there?" No answer came. "I must have been dreaming," the Princess murmured, "but I thought I heard someone moving about."
Sonia Danidoff was not unduly nervous, but like most people who live much alone and in large hotels, she was wont to be careful, and wished to make sure that no suspicious person had made his way into her rooms. She made a rapid survey of her bedroom, glanced into the brilliantly lighted drawing-room, and then moved to her bed and saw that the electric bell board, which enabled her to summon any of her own or of the hotel's servants, was in perfect order. Then, satisfied, she went into her dressing-room, quickly slipped off the rest of her clothes, and plunged into the perfumed water in her bath.
She thrilled with pleasure as her limbs, so tired after a long evening, relaxed in the warm water. On a table close to the bath she had placed a volume of old Muscovite folk tales, and she was glancing through these by the shaded light from a lamp above her, when a fresh sound made her start. She sat up quickly in the water and looked around her. There was nothing there. Then a little shiver shook her and she sank down again in the warm bath with a laugh at her own nervousness. And she was just beginning to read once more, when suddenly a strange voice, with a ring of malice in it, sounded in her ear. Someone was looking over her shoulder, and reading aloud the words she had just begun!
Before Sonia Danidoff had time to utter a cry or make a movement, a strong hand was over her lips, and another gripped her wrist, preventing her from reaching the button of the electric bell that was fixed among the taps. The Princess was almost fainting. She was expecting some horrible shock, expecting to feel some horrible weapon that would take her life, when the pressure on her lips and the grip upon her wrist gradually relaxed; and at the same moment, the mysterious individual who had thus taken her by surprise, moved round the bath and stood in front of her.
He was a man of about forty years of age, and extremely well dressed. A perfectly cut dinner jacket proved that the strange visitor was no unclean dweller in the Paris slums: no apache such as the Princess had read terrifying descriptions of in luridly illustrated newspapers. The hands which had held her motionless, and which now restored her liberty of movement to her, were white and well manicured and adorned with a few plain rings. The man's face was a distinguished one, and he wore a very fine black beard; slight baldness added to the height of a forehead naturally large. But what struck the Princess most, although she had little heart to observe the man very closely, was the abnormal size of his head and the number of wrinkles that ran right across his temples, following the line of the eyebrows.
In silence and with trembling lips Sonia Danidoff made an instinctive effort again to reach the electric bell, but with a quick movement the man caught her shoulder and prevented her from doing so. There was a cryptic smile upon the stranger's lips, and with a furious blush Sonia Danidoff dived back again into the milky water in the bath.
The man still stood in perfect silence, and at length the Princess mastered her emotion and spoke to him.
"Who are you? What do you want? Go at once or I will call for help."
"Above all things, do not call out, or you are a dead woman!" said the stranger harshly. Then he gave a little ironical shrug of his shoulders. "As for ringing — that would not be easy: you would have to leave the water to do so! And, besides, I object."
"If it is money, or rings you want," said the Princess between clenched teeth, "take them! But go!"
The Princess had laid several rings and bracelets on the table by her side, and the man glanced at them now, but without paying much attention to what the Princess said.
"Those trinkets are not bad," he said, "but your signet ring is much finer," and he calmly took the Princess's hand in his and examined the ring that she had kept on her third finger. "Don't be frightened," he added as he felt her hand trembling. "Let us have a chat, if you don't mind! There is nothing especially tempting about jewels apart from their personality," he said after a little pause, "apart, I mean, from the person who habitually wears them. But the bracelet on a wrist, or the necklace round a neck, or the ring upon a finger is another matter!"
Princess Sonia was as pale as death and utterly at a loss to understand what this extraordinary visitor was driving at. She held up her ring finger, and made a frightened little apology.
"I cannot take this ring off: it fits too tight."
The man laughed grimly.
"That does not matter in the least, Princess. Anyone who wanted to get a ring like that could do it quite simply." He felt negligently in his waistcoat pocket and produced a miniature razor, which he opened. He flashed the blade before the terrified eyes of the Princess. "With a sharp blade like this a skilful man could cut off the finger that had such a splendid jewel on it, in a couple of seconds," and then, seeing that the Princess, in fresh panic, was on the very point of screaming, quick as a flash he laid the palm of his hand over her lips, while still speaking in gentle tones to her. "Please do not be so terrified; I suppose you take me for some common hotel thief, or highway robber, but, Princess, can you really believe that I am anything of the kind?"
The man's tone was so earnest, and there was so deferent a look in his eyes, that the Princess recovered some of her courage.
"But I do not know who you are," she said half questioningly.
"So much the better," the man replied; "there is still time to make one another's acquaintance. I know who you are, and that is the main thing. You do not know me, Princess? Well, I assure you that on very many an occasion I have mingled with the blessed company of your adorers!"
The Princess's anger rose steadily with her courage.
"Sir," she said, "I do not know if you are joking, or if you are talking seriously, but your behaviour is extraordinary, hateful, abominable —— "
"It is merely original, Princess, and it pleases me to reflect that if I had been content to be presented to you in the ordinary way, in one or other of the many drawing-rooms we both frequent, you would certainly have taken much less notice of me than you have taken to-night; from the persistence of your gaze I can see that from this day onwards, not a single feature of my face will be unfamiliar to you, and I am convinced that, whatever happens, you will remember it for a very long time."
Princess Sonia tried to force a smile. She had recovered her self-possession, and was wondering what kind of man she had to deal with. If she was still not quite persuaded that this was not a vulgar thief, and if she had but little faith in his professions of admiration of herself, she was considerably exercised by the idea that she was alone with a lunatic.
