"In her drawing-room, Excellency."
"Then go and ask her if she will give me a cup of tea in a few minutes."
And the man, a timorous German, went.
A few minutes later Steinmetz, presenting himself at the door of the
little drawing-room attached to Etta's suite of rooms, found the
princess in a matchless tea-gown waiting beside a table laden with
silver tea appliances. A dainty samovar, a tiny tea-pot, a spirit-lamp
and the rest, all in the wonderful silver-work of the Slavonski Bazaar
in Moscow.
"You see," she said with a smile, for she always smiled on men, "I have
obeyed your orders."
Steinmetz bowed gravely. He was one of the few men who could see that
smile and be strong. He closed the door carefully behind him. No mention
was made of the fact that his message had implied, and she had
understood, that he wished to see her alone. Etta was rather pale. There
was an anxious look in her eyes--behind the smile, as it were. She was
afraid of this man. She looked at the flame of the samovar, busying
herself among the tea-things with pretty curving fingers and rustling
sleeves. But the tea was never made.
"I begin to think," said Steinmetz, coming to the point in his bluff
way, "that you are a sort of beautiful Jonah, a graceful stormy petrel,
a fair Wandering Jewess. There is always trouble where you go.
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