The servants threw open the vast doors, and stood respectfully in the warm, brilliantly lighted hall while their master passed in.
"Where is the princess ?" Steinmetz asked his valet, while he was removing the evidences of a long day in the open air.
"In her drawing-room, Excellency." "Then go and ask her if she will give me a cup of tea in a few minutes." And the man, a timorous German, went.
A few minutes later Steinmetz, presenting himself at the door of the little drawing-room attached to Etta's suite of rooms, found the princess in a matchless tea-gown waiting beside a table laden with silver tea appliances.

A dainty samovar, a tiny tea-pot, a spirit-lamp and the rest, all in the wonderful silver-work of the Slavonski Bazaar in Moscow.
"You see," she said with a smile, for she always smiled on men, "I have obeyed your orders." Steinmetz bowed gravely.

He was one of the few men who could see that smile and be strong.

He closed the door carefully behind him.

No mention was made of the fact that his message had implied, and she had understood, that he wished to see her alone.