The Princess passed through her drawing-room, a vast, round room, with a
superb view over the Arc de Triomphe, and went into her bedroom where
she switched on the electric light.

"Nadine," she called, in her grave, melodious voice, and a young girl,
almost a child, sprang from a low divan hidden in a corner. "Nadine,
take off my cloak and unfasten my hair. Then you can leave me: it is
late, and I am tired."

The little maid obeyed, helped her mistress to put on a silken dressing
gown, and loosened the masses of her hair. The Princess passed a hand
across her brow, as if to brush away a headache.

"Before you go, get a bath ready for me; I think that would rest me."

Ten minutes later Nadine crept back like a shadow, and found the
Princess standing dreamily on the balcony, inhaling deep breaths of the
pure night air. The child kissed the tips of her mistress's fingers.
"Your bath is quite ready," she said, and then withdrew.

A few more minutes passed, and Princess Sonia, half undressed, was just
going into her dressing-room when suddenly she turned and went back to
the middle of the bedroom which she had been on the point of leaving.

"Nadine," she called, "are you still there?" No answer came. "I must
have been dreaming," the Princess murmured, "but I thought I heard
someone moving about."

Sonia Danidoff was not unduly nervous, but like most people who live
much alone and in large hotels, she was wont to be careful, and wished
to make sure that no suspicious person had made his way into her rooms.
She made a rapid survey of her bedroom, glanced into the brilliantly
lighted drawing-room, and then moved to her bed and saw that the
electric bell board, which enabled her to summon any of her own or of
the hotel's servants, was in perfect order. Then, satisfied, she went
into her dressing-room, quickly slipped off the rest of her clothes, and
plunged into the perfumed water in her bath.

She thrilled with pleasure as her limbs, so tired after a long evening,
relaxed in the warm water. On a table close to the bath she had placed a
volume of old Muscovite folk tales, and she was glancing through these
by the shaded light from a lamp above her, when a fresh sound made her
start. She sat up quickly in the water and looked around her. There was
nothing there. Then a little shiver shook her and she sank down again in
the warm bath with a laugh at her own nervousness. And she was just
beginning to read once more, whe