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Updated: May 31, 2025
Then she shuddered a little, involuntarily, for she had seen Durkin catch up one of his shoes, hammer-like, where it protruded from the side pocket of his coat and she knew only too well how he would make use of it. As Pobloff bent over her, unwarned, unsuspecting, almost wondering for what she was waiting with such confidently closed eyes, Durkin crossed the carpeted floor.
Still he sped on, fearing the tremendous outburst at the close, where Chopin throws overboard his soul, and with blood-red sails signals the hellish Willis, the Lamias of the lake, to his side. Ah, if Pobloff could but thus portion his soul as hostage to the infernal host that now hemmed him in on all sides!
He started pacing back and forth in front of her, frowning with mingled irritation and impatience. "Then what about Pobloff?" he suddenly asked. "Five minutes after we had stepped out of the hotel he met us, face to face. With Keenan, I had no chance of getting away. So I simply faced it out.
"What, madam, did you come here for?" he demanded. She shrugged an apparently careless shoulder. "His Highness, the Prince Ignace Slevenski Pobloff, has always been the recipient of much flattering attention!" She found it still safest to mock him. "We have had enough of this! What is it? Money? Or jewelry?" She spurned the leather bag on the floor with the toe of her shoe.
The door opened and closed. "I trust I do not intrude?" Frank's brush fell from her hand, before she even slowly wheeled and looked, for it was the suave and well-modulated baritone of Pobloff. "What does this mean?" she demanded vacantly, retreating before his steady and scornful gaze. "Simply, madam, that you and I seem seldom able to anticipate each other's calls!"
She could see that, above and beyond all his craftiness, his latent Irish fighting-blood was aroused. "Then, by God, I'll put him out myself. If there's any fight between him and me " he turned on Pobloff "we won't drag a woman into it!" The tall, gaunt Russian against the wall was no longer laughing. "Pardon me," he said, advancing a step.
"Let us hope, Exalted Highness, that your masquerades and mystifications are over forever. To-day's prankish sport may put us to trouble for a satisfactory explanation." He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the prostrate composer. "And hasheesh sometimes maddens for a lifetime!" He lightly touched the drugged Pobloff with his enormous foot.
Before he could go in search of the ever absent guard, the woman suddenly sat up, clapped her hands, and said something; but whether it was Turkish, Roumanian, or Greek, he couldn't distinguish. A hamper was hauled from under the seat by the servant, and to his joy Pobloff saw white rolls, grapes, wine, figs, and cheese. He bowed and began eating.
"The lady smokes," he thought, and slyly chuckled. A sound of something tearing was heard, and a pair of beautiful hands reached for the tobacco. In a few moments the slender fingers were pressing a cigarette; the slave lighted a wax fusee; the lady took it, put the cigarette in a rent of her veil, and a second volume of odorous vapour arose. Pobloff leaned back, stupefied.
A negro, gorgeously clad, guarding closely a slim female, draped from head to foot in virginal white, attracted the musician. The man's face was monstrous in its suggestion of evil, and furthermore shocking, because his nose was a gaping hole. Evidently a scimiter had performed this surgical operation, Pobloff mused. The giant's eyes offended him, they so stared, and threateningly.
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