As she stood in the dressing room, with her scarlet hood tied under her chin, Sophie stooped over her, and said:
“May I kiss you once, as a dear, little girl from over the sea, where I wish to Heaven I had been born?”
I thought Katy hesitated a moment; then she lifted her face for the kisses Sophie gave her—passionate kisses, such as women seldom give to each other. Very little was said by either of us on our way home, or after our return to the hotel. We were puzzled and troubled, and half wished we had never seen Sophie Scholaskie.
In his journal that night Jack wrote: “Well, sir, I am getting what I wanted—a sprat with a gendarme.” Then followed a short account of the “sprat,” and Jack continued: “I was awful mad, but I rather liked the looks of Mr. Seguin. I wonder if Ivan was in the house? I kind of believe he was, don’t you?”
CHAPTER XI.
A RUSSIAN FETE.
The next morning about ten o’clock Chance appeared, with his master, who had hard work to keep him from knocking me down. When he first saw me, he sprang upon me with both his paws; then ran round the room in circles and back again to me, licking my hands and face until M. Seguin called him off. Jack now took his attention, for dogs like boys, and the two were rolling over the floor, sometimes with Jack’s arms around the dog, and sometimes with Chance’s big paws encircling Jack. The noise they made enabled M. Seguin to say a few words to me of the occurrence of the previous night.
“I was so sure of him,” he said, “but I would not have gone had I known you were there. I only returned yesterday from Moscow, and heard at once that Ivan was in the city, and also that you were here. Zaidee told me that.”
“Zaidee!” I repeated, inquiringly.
“The girl to whom you gave your hat,” he explained. “I believe I have really done one good deed in my life. She stopped me one day and asked for you. Something in her face appealed to me. I knew she was from the lowest slums—a thief, most likely, and a nihilist, so far as she knows what that means. But I took a fancy to her, and she is now my mother’s waiting maid, becapped and white-aproned, and all that sort of thing—and bright as a guinea. She finds out everything that is going on, and I believe she knew Ivan was in town, but she would not tell me that. She’d warn him, if she could. I think she wants to come herself and thank you for the hat. She has it still among her treasures.”
Jack and Chance were tired out by this time—or the dog was—and, taking advantage of the lull, M. Seguin addressed the three of us, Katy, Jack and myself, saying his mother would like to see us at dinner that evening at seven o’clock.