"Snowing! Oh, Karl, can't we postpone this? I don't feel well to-day; to-morrow I could come and bring my maid."
"Certainly not; your husband would surely want to know why we did no work to-day. Now I will leave you."
CHAPTER III
He left the room, closing the studio doors behind him. Olga looked apprehensively about her. Some mysterious presence seemed to oppress her. She fumbled with nerveless fingers at the buttons of her waist.
"Oh, what folly!" she cried to herself. "What is the matter with me?"
Resolutely she set to work and drew from her beautiful shoulders and gleaming, rounded arms the silken waist that covered them. She turned to get the shawl, and the waist fell to the floor, as she recoiled with a shriek of terror from an apparition that arose slowly from the depths of the big arm-chair.
Where there had been no human being an instant before Olga saw a tall, strange-looking man. He was in conventional afternoon attire, save that his waistcoat was red, in sharp contrast to the somber black of his frock coat. His hair was black. His upward pointing eyebrows were black, and his eyes shone like dull-burning lumps of coal. His face was like a mask, matching his immaculate linen in whiteness. It was cynical in its expression and almost sinister as he bowed low, with his hands folded over his breast, and said in a low, musical voice:
"Pardon me, madam, I think you dropped something."