Page:Edgar Wallace--The book of all-power.djvu/122

 of mischief in her eyes, "but I will give you a warmer invitation."

He spread out his hands in mock dismay and looked down at his untidy clothes.

"Your Highness is very generous," he said, "but how can I come to the Grand Duke's table like this?"

"You will not see the Grand Duke," she laughed; "father gives these invitations but never accepts them himself! He breakfasts in his own room, so if you can endure me alone" she challenged.

He said nothing but looked much, and her eyes fell before his. All the time he was conscious that red-haired Boolba stood stiffly behind him, a spectator, yet, as Malcolm felt, a participant in this small affair of the breakfast invitation. She followed Malcolm's look and beckoned the man forward. He had already surrendered the horses to an orderly.

"Take the lord to a guest-room," she said in Russian, "and send a valet to attend to him."

"It is ordered," said the man, and with a nod, the girl turned and walked into the house, followed at a more leisurely pace by Malcolm and the man with the crooked nose.

Boolba led the way up a broad flight of stairs, carpeted with thick red pile, along a corridor pierced at intervals with great windows, to another corridor