the motley company melted away and left her alone with the man.
"They have all gone?" he asked eagerly. "Every one?"
He clutched more tightly.
"To my room. We have a supper for ourselves. They are pigs, all these fellows, my little beautiful."
The old carpet was still on the stairs, she noticed dully. Up above used to be her own room, at the far end of the long passage. She had a piano there once. She wondered whether it was still there. There used to be a servant at the head and at the foot of these stairs—a long, green-coated Cossack, to pass whom without authority was to court death. The room on the left had been her father's—two big saloons, separated by heavy silken curtains; his bureau was at one end, his bedroom at the other.
It was into the bureau that the man groped his way. A table had been set, crowded with bottles and glasses, piled with fruit, sweetmeats, and at the end the inevitable samovar.
"I will lock the door," said Boolba. "Now you shall kiss me on the eyes and on the mouth and on the cheeks, making the holy cross."
She braced herself for the effort, and wrenched free. In a flash he came at her, and his hands caught the silken gown at the shoulder. She twisted under his arm, leaving a length of tattered and torn silk
