"Now, gentlemen, what is your wish?" asked the man, and Malinkoff explained the object of the visit.

Petroff looked serious.

"Of course, I will do anything her Highness wishes," he said. "I saw her yesterday, and she told me that she had a dear friend in St. Basil."

Malcolm tried to look unconcerned under Malinkoff's swift scrutiny and failed. "But I think she wished you to meet another--guest."

He paused.

"He has gone into Moscow to-night against my wishes," he said with trouble in his face; "such an old man----"

"Kensky?" said Malcolm quickly.

"Kensky." The tone was short. "I told him that no good would come of it--her Highness was married to-night."

Malcolm took a step forward, but it was an unsteady step.

"Married?" he repeated. "To whom was she married?"

Petroff looked down at the floor as though he dare not meet the eye of any man and say so monstrous a thing.

"To the servant Boolba," he said.

CHAPTER XV

THE RED BRIDE

Irene Yaroslav came back to the home which had always been a.s.sociated in her mind with unhappy memories, to meet the culminating disaster which Fate had wrought. Whatever thoughts of escape she may have treasured in secret were cut into by the sure knowledge that she was watched day and night, and were now finally terminated by the discovery that the big apartment house, a suite of which Boolba had taken for her disposal when he had ousted her from her father's house, was practically in possession of the Soviet Guard.

She drove to the palace with an undisguised escort of mounted men, one on either side of the carriage, one before and one behind, and went up the stairs--those grim stairs which had frightened her as a child and had filled her nights with dreams, pa.s.sing on her way the now empty bureau which it had been Boolba's whim for her to keep.

Maria Badisikaya, an officer of the Committee for the Suppression of the Counter-Revolution, formerly an operative in the Moscow Cigarette Company, was waiting in the small drawing-room which still retained some of its ancient splendour. Maria was a short, stumpy woman with a slight moustache and a wart on her chin, and was dressed in green satin, cut low to disclose her generous figure. About her stiff, coal-black hair was a heavy diamond bandeau. She was sitting on a settee, her feet hardly touching the ground, cleaning her nails with a little pocket-knife as the girl entered. Evidently this was her maid of honour, and she could have laughed.

The woman glowered up at her and jumped briskly to her feet, closing the knife and slipping it into her corsage.

"You are late, Irene Yaroslav," she said shrilly. "I have something better to do than to sit here waiting for a boorjoo. There is a committee meeting at ten o'clock to-night. How do you imagine I can attend that? Come, come!"

She bustled into an ante-room.

"Here is your dress, my little bride. See, there is everything, even to stockings--Boolba has thought of all, yet he will not see! La! la! What a man!"

Numerous articles of attire were laid out on chairs and on the back of the sofa, and the girl, looking at them, shuddered. It was Boolba's idea--n.o.body but Boolba would have thought of it. Every garment was of red, blood red, a red which seemed to fill the room with harsh sound.

Stockings of finest silk, shoes of russian leather, cobweb underwear--but all of the same hideous hue. In Russia the word "red" is also the word "beautiful." In a language in which so many delicate shades of meaning can be expressed, this word serves a double purpose, doing duty for that which, in the eyes of civilized people, is garish, and that which is almost divine.

Maria's manner changed suddenly. From the impatient, slightly pompous official, conscious of her position, she became obsequious and even affectionate. Possibly she remembered that the girl was to become the wife of the most powerful man in Moscow, whose word was amply sufficient to send even Gregory Prodol to the execution yard, and Gregory's position seemed una.s.sailable.

"I will help you to dress, my little dear," she said. "Let me take your hat, my little dove."

"I would rather be alone," said the girl. "Will you please wait in the next room, Maria Badisikaya?"

"But I can help you so, my little darling," said the woman, fussing about. "A bride has no luck for thirty years if she puts on her own stockings."

"Go!" said the girl imperiously, and the woman cringed.

"Certainly, Excellenz," she stammered, and went out without another word.

The girl changed quickly, and surveyed herself in the pier gla.s.s at the end of the room. It was striking but horrible. There came a tap at the door and the agitated Maria entered.

"He has sent for you, my little dove," she said. "Come, take my arm. Do not tremble, my little pretty. Boolba is a good man and the greatest man in Moscow."

She would have taken the girl's arm, but Irene waved her aside, and walked swiftly from the drawing-room into the grand saloon. She wanted the ordeal over as soon as possible.

The room was crowded, and though many of the electric lamps in the great gla.s.s chandelier were not in working order and a broken fuse had put half the wall brackets in darkness, the light was almost dazzling. This wonderful saloon, where ten Czars had eaten bread and salt with ten generations of Yaroslavs, was thick with humanity. Some of the men were in uniform, some were in a nondescript costume which was the Soviet compromise between evening-dress and diplomatic uniform. One man wore a correct evening-jacket and a white waistcoat with a perfectly starched shirt, over uniform trousers and top-boots. The women were as weirdly clothed. Some were shabby to the point of rags, a few wore court dresses of the approved pattern, and there was one woman dressed like a man, who smoked all the time. The air was blue with tobacco smoke and buzzing with sound.

As she came into the saloon somebody shouted her name, and there was vigorous applause, not for her, she knew, nor for the name she bore, but for the novelty and the "beauty" of her wedding gown.

At the farther end of the room was a table covered with a red cloth, and behind it sat a man in evening-dress, whom she recognized as one of the newly-appointed magistrates of the city. Nudged behind by Maria, she made her way through the press of people, whose admiring comments were spoken loud enough for her to hear.

"What a little beauty! Too good for a blind man, eh?"

"We have knelt for her many times, now she shall kneel for us."

"Such a dress! This Boolba is a wonderful fellow."

She halted before the table, her hands clasped lightly in front of her.

Her head was high, and she met every glance steadily and disdainfully.

The clock struck a quarter after ten when Boolba made his entrance amidst a storm of applause.

They had never seen him in such a uniform before. Some thought it was a new costume which had been sanctioned by the supreme Soviet for its Commissaries; others that it had been planned especially for the marriage. Irene alone knew it, and a cold, disdainful smile lit for a moment her expressionless face.

She had seen Boolba in knee-breeches and white silk stockings before; she knew the coat of green and gold which the retainers of the house of Yaroslav wore on state occasions. Boolba was marrying her in his butler's livery--a delicate piece of vengeance.

The ceremony was short, and, to the girl, unreal. Religious marriages, though they had not altogether been banned, were regarded by the official Russia as unnecessary, and a new marriage service had been designed, which confined the ceremony to the s.p.a.ce of a few minutes. The attempts to abolish marriage altogether had been strenuously opposed, not so much by the public women who were on the innumerable councils and committees, but by the wives of the more important members of the organization.

Boolba was led to her side, and reached out his hand gropingly, and in very pity of his blindness she took it. Questions were asked him, to which he responded and similar questions were asked her, to which she made no reply. The whole ceremony was a farce, and she had agreed to it only because it gave her a little extra time, and every minute counted.

From the moment the magistrate p.r.o.nounced the formula which made them, in the eyes of the Soviet law at any rate, man and wife, Boolba never loosened his hold of her.

He held her hand in his own big, hot palm, until it was wet and her fingers lost all feeling. From group to group they moved, and when they crossed the dancing s.p.a.ce of the saloon, the revellers stepped aside to allow the man to pa.s.s. She noticed that in the main they confined themselves to country dances, some of which were new to her. And all the time Boolba kept up a continuous conversation in an undertone, pinching her hand gently whenever he wanted to attract her attention.

"Tell me, my new eyes, my little pigeon of G.o.d, what are they doing now?

Do you see Mishka Gurki? She is a silly woman. Tell me, my little pet, if you see her. Watch her well, and tell me how she looks at me. That woman is an enemy of the Revolution and a friend of Sophia Kensky....

Ah! it is sad about your poor friends."

The girl turned cold and clenched her teeth to take the news which was coming.