“That? That is nothing!” he cried. “Will you come with me?”
She looked steadily at him a moment.
“I will come,” she said.
For an instant he considered at what hotel there was least danger of his being recognized. “Isvochtchik, to the Hotel Metropole—straight!” he ordered.
Ten minutes later they were standing in the hotel lobby, her arm in his, two porters industriously brushing the snow off their long fur coats, and a gold-braided major-domo before them.
“I suppose,” said Drexel, “you have a room for myself and wife?”
“Certainly, sir,” said the bowing major-domo.
“Ah—say two rooms, with a connecting door?”
“Certainly. I will show you.”
Drexel followed, and the young woman, with perfect poise, with a grace that made him marvel, swept up the stairway at his side. The two rooms were large, each with a great white-tiled stove filling one corner from floor to ceiling, with long windows looking out upon the street—and with, between the two, the required door.