She did it despite a thousand difficulties
and more than one danger--accomplished it with, as the sporting people
say, plenty to spare--before the door behind them was opened by the
attendant, and Karl Steinmetz, burly, humorously imperturbable and
impenetrable, stood smiling gravely on the situation.
He saw Claude de Chauxville, and before the Frenchman had turned round
the expression on Steinmetz's large and placid countenance had changed
from the self-consciousness usually preceding an introduction to one of
a dim recognition.
"I have had the pleasure of meeting madame somewhere before, I think. In
St. Petersburg, was it not?"
Etta, composed and smiling, said that it was so, and introduced him to
Maggie. De Chauxville took the opportunity of leaving that young lady's
side, and placing himself near enough to Paul and Etta to completely
frustrate any further attempts at confidential conversation.
For a moment Steinmetz and Paul were left standing together.
"I have had a telegram," said Steinmetz in Russian. "We must go back to
Tver. There is cholera again. When can you come?"
Beneath his heavy mustache Paul bit his lip.
"In three days," he answered.
"True? You will come with me?" enquired Steinmetz, under cover of the
clashing music.
"Of course."
Steinmetz looked at him curiously.
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