Читать книгу The Ostrekoff Jewels онлайн

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She held out both hands with an imperious gesture. He bent low and raised them to his lips, but he had not altogether concealed the moisture in his eyes.

"What a lover you will make, my dear Wilfred," she laughed, as she drew away. "You have the sensibility which our Russian men too often lack. See, I make you the mystic sign of the Tartars, the sign of the woman who sends her man to battle, the sign which she may make only to son or husband. It should take you safely to England."

Her beautiful white hand, the fingers of which were laden with the jewels which she had scorned to remove, flashed through the shadows up and down in strange circles and tangents. It finished with a final sweep, outstretched, firm and resolute—and it pointed towards the door.

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The Prince led his young friend down the vast staircase almost in silence. The same thought was present in the minds of both of them. For generations this smooth marble surface had been pressed by the feet of queens and princesses, kings and ambassadors, the flower of the world's aristocracy. Now the whole place seemed abysmally empty, the stairs themselves slippery with dust, disfigured by the foul relics of an army of raiders with whom had departed practically the whole of the domestic staff. They passed through a labyrinth of passages, unheated, unlit, dank and mysterious. There were rooms full of broken furniture and china, a great kitchen with the remains of a carouse still littering in unsavoury disorder the large table. They came at last to a huge oaken door. The Prince paused before it.