CHAPTER XVII
“Now what?” demanded Dmitri cheerily. “You look as stark as a dead fish, my friend. Have some wine.”
Steccho took the full glass gratefully, drained it, his head thrown far back, and wiped his lips with a sweep of his hand.
“I thought it was the police,” he said unsteadily.
Dmitri lit the fire in the brazier before he spoke. His eyes were filled with brooding solicitude when he looked back at the boy. Steccho’s whole posture showed more than mere exhaustion. There were dejection and fear in the slouch of his body as he sat forward on the edge of the couch, his fingers crumpled in his hair.
“You have done something to-night?”
The boy nodded.
Dmitri measured powdered Arabian coffee into the copper pot carefully.
“It is a pitiful penalty of wrongdoing,” he said compassionately, “the little ghosts of fear one must forever entertain. You have been followed here?”
“I am not afraid. I am hungry.” A shudder like a chill shook his narrow, stooped shoulders. Dmitri eyed him anxiously. “Let us go around to Barouki, some place where it is quiet and we can talk.”