As she sat beneath the pink-shaded electric lamp suspended over the table, I thought I had never seen her looking so inexpressibly charming. Little wonder, indeed, that young City men down for a fortnight’s leisure at the seaside, the annual relaxation from their weary work-a-day world of office and suburban railway, looked upon her in admiration and followed her in order to feast their eyes upon her marvellous beauty. What would they have thought, had they but known that the girl so quietly and well-dressed in black was of the bluest blood of Europe, a daughter of the Imperial Romanoffs.
That big, old-fashioned house which I had arranged for her six weeks ago belonged to the widow of a brewery baronet, a man who had made a great fortune out of mild dinner-ale. The somewhat beefy lady—once a domestic servant—had gone on a voyage around the world and had been pleased to let it furnished for a year. With her consent I had had the whole place repainted and decorated, had caused new carpets to be provided, and in some instances the rooms had been refurnished in modern style, while four of the servants, including Igor, the butler, and Davey, Her Highness’s maid, had been brought from her father’s palace beside the Neva.
For a girl not yet nineteen it was, indeed, quite a unique establishment. Miss West acting as chaperone, companion and housekeeper.
Seated at the head of the table, the little Grand Duchess did the honours as, indeed, she had so often done them at the great table in that magnificent salon in Petersburg, for being the only child, it had very often fallen to her lot to help her father to entertain, her mother having died a month after her birth.
Dinner over, the ladies rose and left, while I sat to smoke my cigarette alone. Outside in the hall the undersized, insignificant little man in black sat upon a chair reading the evening paper, and as old Igor poured out my glass of port I asked him in French how he liked England.
“Ah! m’sieur,” he exclaimed in his thin, squeaky voice. “Truly it is most beautiful. We are all so well here—so much better than in Petersburg. Years ago I went to London with my poor master, the Grand Duke. We stayed at Claridge’s. M’sieur knows the place—eh?”
“Of course,” I said. “But tell me, Igor, since you’ve been in Brighton—over a month now—have you ever met, or seen, anybody you know? I mean anyone you have seen before in Petersburg?”
I was anxious to learn whether young Hamborough, Paul Urusoff, or any of the rest, had been in the vicinity.
The old fellow reflected a few moments. Then he replied:
“Of course I saw M’sieur Hartwig three weeks ago. Also His Excellency the Ambassador when he came down from London to pay his respects to Her Imperial Highness.”