The house was, I found, somewhat smaller than its neighbors, but not let
out in flats as the others. Upon the door was a large brass plate
bearing the name, "Olga Stassulevitch: modes." I pressed the electric
button, and in answer a tall, clean-shaven Russian servant opened the
door.
"Madame is not at home," was his brief reply to my inquiry.
"Then I will see the Red Priest," I said in a lower tone. "I come from
Elma Heath." Thereupon, without further word, the man admitted me into
the long, dark hall and closed the door with an apology that the gas was
not lighted. But striking a match he led me up the broad staircase and
into a small, cosy, well-furnished room on the second floor, evidently
the sitting-room of some studious person, judging from the books and
critical reviews lying about.
For a few minutes I waited there, until the door reopened, and there
entered a man of medium height, with a shock of long snow-white hair
and almost patriarchal beard, whose dark eyes that age had dimmed
flashed out at me with a look of curious inquiry, and whose movements
were those of a person not quite at his ease.
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