"Is it that his Excellency is cold?" he enquired.

"No, it isn't," answered Steinmetz. "Quite the contrary."

He drank the beer, and holding out his hand in the shadow of the table, he noticed that it trembled only a little.

"That is better," he murmured. "But I must sit here a while longer. I suppose I was upset. That is what they call it--upset! I have never been like that before. Those lamps in the Prospekt! Gott! how they jumped up and down!"

He pressed his hand over his eyes as if to shut out the brightness of the room--the glaring gas and brilliant decorations--the shining bottles and the many tables which would not keep still.

"Here," he said to the man, "give me more beer."

Presently he rose, and, getting rather clumsily into his sleigh, drove back at the usual breakneck pace to the palace at the upper end of the English Quay.

He sent an ambiguous message to Paul, saying that he had returned and was dressing for dinner. This ceremony he went through slowly, as one dazed by a great fall or a heavy fatigue. His servant, a quick, silent man, noticed the strangeness of his manner, and like a wise servant only betrayed the result of his observation by a readier service, a quicker hand, a quieter motion.

As Steinmetz went to the drawing-room he glanced at his watch. It was twenty minutes past seven. He still had ten minutes to spare before dinner.

He opened the drawing-room door. Etta was sitting by the fire, alone.

She glanced back over her shoulder in a quick, hunted way which had only become apparent to Steinmetz since her arrival at Petersburg.

"Good-evening," she said.

"Good-evening, madame," he answered.

He closed the door carefully behind him.

CHAPTER XX

AN OFFER OF FRIENDSHIP

Etta did not move when Steinmetz approached, except, indeed, to push one foot farther out toward the warmth of the wood fire. She certainly was very neatly shod. Steinmetz was one of her few failures. She had never got any nearer to the man. Despite his gray hair and bulky person she argued that he was still a man, and therefore an easy victim to flattery--open to the influence of beauty.

"I wonder why," she said, looking into the fire, "you hate me."

Steinmetz looked down at her with his grim smile. The mise en scene was perfect, from the thoughtful droop of the head to the innocent display of slipper.

"I wonder why you think that of me," he replied.

"One cannot help perceiving that which is obvious."

"While that which is purposely made obvious serves to conceal that which may exist behind it," replied the stout man.

Etta paused to reflect over this. Was Steinmetz going to make love to her? She was not an inexperienced girl, and knew that there was nothing impossible or even improbable in the thought. She wondered what Karl Steinmetz must have been like when he was a young man. He had a deft way even now of planting a double entendre when he took the trouble. How could she know that his manner was always easiest, his attitude always politest, toward the women whom he despised. In his way this man was a philosopher. He had a theory that an exaggerated politeness is an insult to a woman's intellect.

"You think I do not care," said the Princess Howard Alexis.

"You think I do not admire you," replied Steinmetz imperturbably.

She looked up at him.

"Do you not give me every reason to think so?" she returned, with a toss of the head.

She was one of those women--and there are not a few--who would quarrel with you if you do not admire them.

"Not intentionally, princess. I am, as you know, a German of no very subtle comprehension. My position in your household appears to me to be a little above the servants, although the prince is kind enough to make a friend of me and his friends are so good as to do the same. I do not complain. Far from it. I am well paid. I am interested in my work. I am more or less my own master. I am very fond of Paul. You--are kind and forbearing. I do my best--in a clumsy way, no doubt--to spare you my heavy society. But of course I do not presume to form an opinion upon your--upon you."

"But I want you to form an opinion," she said petulantly.

"Then you must know that I could only form one which would be pleasing to you."

"I know nothing of the sort," replied Etta. "Of course I know that all that you say about position and work is mere irony. Paul thinks there is no one in the world like you."

Steinmetz glanced sharply down at her. He had never considered the possibility that she might love Paul. Was this, after all, jealousy? He had attributed it to vanity.

"And I have no doubt he is right," she went on. Suddenly she gave a little laugh. "Don't you understand?" she said. "I want to be friends."

She did not look at him, but sat with pouting lips holding out her hand.

Karl Steinmetz had been up to the elbows, as it were, in the diplomacy of an unscrupulous, grasping age ever since his college days. He had been behind the scenes in more than one European crisis, and that which goes on behind the scenes is not always edifying or conducive to a squeamishness of touch. He was not the man to be mawkishly afraid of soiling his fingers. But the small white hand rather disconcerted him.

He took it, however, in his great, warm, soft grasp, held it for a moment, and relinquished it.

"I don't want you to address all your conversation to Maggie, and to ignore me. Do you think Maggie so very pretty?"

There was a twist beneath the gray mustache as he answered, "Is that all the friendship you desire? Does it extend no farther than a passing wish to be first in petty rivalries of daily existence? I am afraid, my dear princess, that my friendship is a heavier matter--a clumsier thing than that."

"A big thing not easily moved," she suggested, looking up with her dauntless smile.

He shrugged his great shoulders.

"It may be--who knows? I hope it is," he answered.

"The worst of those big things is that they are sometimes in the way,"

said Etta reflectively, without looking at him.

"And yet the life that is only a conglomeration of trifles is a poor life to look back upon."

"Meaning mine?" she asked.

"Your life has not been trifling," he said gravely.

She looked up at him, and then for some moments kept silence while she idly opened and shut her fan. There was in the immediate vicinity of Karl Steinmetz a sort of atmosphere of sympathy which had the effect of compelling confidence. Even Etta was affected by it. During the silence recorded she was quelling a sudden desire to say things to this man which she had never said to any. She only succeeded in part.

"Do you ever feel an unaccountable sensation of dread," she asked, with a weary little laugh; "a sort of foreboding with nothing definite to forebode?"