He sat down suddenly, a slipper in either hand. They must have come from somewhere—they could not have concealed themselves among his things. If he had not placed them there, then someone else had. But who? And for what purpose? The police? His landlady had said that they had searched his luggage; but what possible object could they have had for increasing it by two satin slippers and a pair of stockings? Such an action was farcical—French-farcical!—but he could not be incriminated in such a way. He had no wife to be made jealous! And even if he had——
“This is the last straw!” he muttered to himself. “Either the world has gone mad, or I have.”
Moving as in a dream, he placed the slippers side by side upon the floor, contemplated them for a moment longer, and then proceeded slowly with his dressing. He found an unaccustomed difficulty in putting his buttons in his cuffs, and then he remembered that it was a tie he had been looking for when he found the slippers. The slippers! He turned and glanced at them. Yes—they were still there—they had not vanished. Very coquettish they appeared, standing there side by side, as though waiting for their owner.
And suddenly Stewart smiled a crooked smile.
“Only one thing is necessary to complete this pantomime,” he told himself, “and that is that the Princess should suddenly appear and claim them. Well, I’m willing! A woman with a foot like that——”
There was a knock at the door.
“In a moment!” he called.
“But it is I!” cried a woman’s voice in English—a sweet, high-pitched voice, quivering with excitement. “It is I!” and the door was flung open with a crash.
A woman rushed toward him—he saw vaguely her vivid face, her shining eyes; behind her, more vaguely still, he saw the staring eyes of the hang-dog waiter. Then she was upon him.
“At last!” she cried, and flung her arms about him and kissed him on the lips—kissed him closely, passionately, as he had never been kissed before.