Without delay I introduced her to the "holy" man, who stood with his hands crossed over his breast in his most pious attitude.
"My daughter, you have, I believe, been sent to me by our mutual friend," he said. "You wish for something? Here it is," and he produced a small oblong cardboard box such as jewellers use for men's scarf-pins. Opening it, he showed her the tiny tube reposing in pink cotton wool. "It is a little present for somebody, eh?" he asked with a sinister laugh.
"Perhaps," replied the girl as she took it and placed it carefully in the black silk vanity-bag she was carrying.
"You have already received instructions through another channel?" inquired Rasputin.
"I have, O Father," was her reply.
"Then be extremely careful of it. Let not a grain of it touch you," he said. "I am ordered to tell you that."
She promised to exercise the greatest care.
"And when you have fulfilled your mission come to me again," he said, fixing her with his sinister, hypnotic eyes, beneath the cold intense gaze of which I saw that she was trembling. "Remember that!—perform what is expected of you fearlessly, but with complete discretion, and instantly on your return to Petrograd call here and report to me."
The girl promised, and then, kissing the dirty paw which the monk held out to her, she withdrew.
"Good-looking—extremely good-looking, Féodor," the monk remarked as soon as she had gone. "She might be very useful to me in the near future." Then after a pause he added: "Ring up His Excellency the Minister of War and ask where Brusiloff is at the present moment."