“It is most kind of you,” he said in French, which language had been spoken all the evening in courtesy to the marquise, who was now asleep—­“it is most kind of you to condescend to visit my poor house, princess.  Believe me, I feel the honor deeply.  When you first came into the room—­you may have observed it—­I was quite taken aback.  I—­I have read in books of beauty capable of taking away a man’s breath.  You must excuse me—­I am a plain-spoken man.  I never met it until this evening.”

Etta excused him readily enough.  She could forgive plenty of plain-speaking of this description.  Had she not been inordinately vain, this woman, like many, would have been extraordinarily clever.  She laughed, with little sidelong glances.

“I only hope that you will honor Paris on your way home to England,” went on Vassili, who had a wonderful knack of judging men and women, especially shallow ones.  “Now, when may that be?  When may we hope to see you again?  How long will you be in Russia, and—­”

“Ce Vassili is the best English scholar I know!” broke in Steinmetz, who had approached somewhat quietly.  “But he will not talk, princess—­he is so shy.”

Paul was approaching also.  It was eleven o’clock, he said, and travellers who had to make an early start would do well to get home to bed.

When the tall doors had been closed behind the departing guests, Vassili walked slowly to the fire-place.  He posted himself on the bear-skin hearthrug, his perfectly shod feet well apart—­a fine dignified figure of a man, of erect and military carriage; a very mask of a face—­soulless, colorless, emotionless ever.

He stood biting at his thumb-nail, looking at the door through which Etta Alexis had just passed in all the glory of her beauty, wealth, and position.

“The woman,” he said slowly, “who sold me the Charity League papers—­and she thinks I do not recognize her!”

CHAPTER XIX

ON THE NEVA

Karl Steinmetz had apparently been transacting business on the Vassili Ostrov, which the travelled reader doubtless knows as the northern bank of the Neva, a part of Petersburg—­an island, as the name tells us, where business is transacted; where steamers land their cargoes and riverside loafers impede the traffic.

What the business of Karl Steinmetz may have been is not of moment or interest; moreover, it was essentially the affair of a man capable of holding his own and his tongue against the world.

He was recrossing the river, not by the bridge, which requires a doffed hat by reason of its shrine, but by one of the numerous roads cut across the ice from bank to bank.  He duly reached the southern shore, ascending to the Admiralty Gardens by a flight of sanded steps.  Here he lighted a cigar, and, tucking his hands deep into the pockets of his fur coat, he proceeded to walk slowly through the bare and deserted public garden.