In the Fog | Page 7

had thought it would be easy enough to explain my
intrusion to a man, but how a woman would look at it was another
matter, and as I followed him down the hall I was somewhat puzzled.
"As we advanced, he noticed that the front door was standing open, and
with an exclamation of surprise, hastened toward it and closed it. Then
he rapped twice on the door of what was apparently the drawing-room.
There was no reply to his knock, and he tapped again, and then timidly,
and cringing subserviently, opened the door and stepped inside. He
withdrew himself at once and stared stupidly at me, shaking his head.
"'She is not there,' he said. He stood for a moment gazing blankly

through the open door, and then hastened toward the dining-room. The
solitary candle which still burned there seemed to assure him that the
room also was empty. He came back and bowed me toward the
drawing-room. 'She is above,' he said; 'I will inform the Princess of the
Excellency's presence.'
"Before I could stop him he had turned and was running up the
staircase, leaving me alone at the open door of the drawing-room. I
decided that the adventure had gone quite far enough, and if I had been
able to explain to the Russian that I had lost my way in the fog, and
only wanted to get back into the street again, I would have left the
house on the instant.
"Of course, when I first rang the bell of the house I had no other
expectation than that it would be answered by a parlor-maid who would
direct me on my way. I certainly could not then foresee that I would
disturb a Russian princess in her boudoir, or that I might be thrown out
by her athletic bodyguard. Still, I thought I ought not now to leave the
house without making some apology, and, if the worst should come, I
could show my card. They could hardly believe that a member of an
Embassy had any designs upon the hat-rack.
"The room in which I stood was dimly lighted, but I could see that, like
the hall, it was hung with heavy Persian rugs. The corners were filled
with palms, and there was the unmistakable odor in the air of Russian
cigarettes, and strange, dry scents that carried me back to the bazaars of
Vladivostock. Near the front windows was a grand piano, and at the
other end of the room a heavily carved screen of some black wood,
picked out with ivory. The screen was overhung with a canopy of
silken draperies, and formed a sort of alcove. In front of the alcove was
spread the white skin of a polar bear, and set on that was one of those
low Turkish coffee tables. It held a lighted spirit-lamp and two gold
coffee cups. I had heard no movement from above stairs, and it must
have been fully three minutes that I stood waiting, noting these details
of the room and wondering at the delay, and at the strange silence.
"And then, suddenly, as my eye grew more used to the half-light, I saw,
projecting from behind the screen as though it were stretched along the

back of a divan, the hand of a man and the lower part of his arm. I was
as startled as though I had come across a footprint on a deserted island.
Evidently the man had been sitting there since I had come into the
room, even since I had entered the house, and he had heard the servant
knocking upon the door. Why he had not declared himself I could not
understand, but I supposed that possibly he was a guest, with no reason
to interest himself in the Princess's other visitors, or perhaps, for some
reason, he did not wish to be observed. I could see nothing of him
except his hand, but I had an unpleasant feeling that he had been
peering at me through the carving in the screen, and that he still was
doing so. I moved my feet noisily on the floor and said tentatively, 'I
beg your pardon.'
"There was no reply, and the hand did not stir. Apparently the man was
bent upon ignoring me, but as all I wished was to apologize for my
intrusion and to leave the house, I walked up to the alcove and peered
around it. Inside the screen was a divan piled with cushions, and on the
end of it nearer me the man was sitting. He was a young Englishman
with light yellow hair and a deeply bronzed face.
"He was seated with his arms stretched out along the back of the divan,
and with his head resting against a cushion. His attitude