"I am sure he would be awfully jealous, Milly darling; you really must be careful," Tamara said. And with a conscious air of complacent pleasantly tickled virtue Mrs. Hardcastle led the way to the saloon.
It was not possible, Tamara thought, that anything so terribly unpleasant as the Prince's having too much champagne at dinner, could have accounted for his simply scandalous behavior after; and yet surely that would have been the kindest thing to say. But, no, it was not that.
This was, in brief, the scene which was enacted on the upper deck:
With the permission of the captain, the gipsy troupe were brought, and began their performance, tame enough at the commencement until the Prince gave orders for them to be supplied with unlimited champagne, and then the wildest dancing began. They writhed and gesticulated and undulated in a manner which made Millicent cling on to her chair, grow crimson in the face, and finally start to her feet.
But the worst happened when the Prince rose and, taking a tambourine, began, with a weird shriek, to beat it wildly, his eyes ablaze and his lips apart.
Then, seizing the chief dancer and banging it upon her head, he held his arm about her heaving breast, as she turned to him with a serpentine movement of voluptuous delight.
In a second he had caught hold of her, and had lifted and swung her far out over the dark blue waters, then, with a swirl to the side, held her suspended in the air above the open deck below.
"Ha, ha!" yelled the troupe, in frenzied pleasure, and, nimble as a cat, one rough dark man rushed down the ladder and caught the hanging woman in his arms. Then they all clapped and cheered and shrieked with joy, while the Prince, putting his hands in his pockets, pulled out heaps of gold and flung it among them.
"Back to hell, rats!" he shouted, laughing. "See, you have frightened the ladies. You should all be killed!"
For Tamara and Millicent had risen, and with stately steps had quitted the scene.
It was all too terrible and too vulgarly melodramatic, Tamara thought, especially that touching of the woman and that flinging of the gold, the latter caused by the same barbaric instinct which made him throw the silver in the Sheikh's village by the moonlit Sphinx, only this was worse a thousandfold.
The next morning the two ladies left the ship at Brindisi before either the Prince or Stephen Strong was awake. Both were silent upon the subject of the night before, until Millicent at last said when they were in the train:
"Tamara—you won't tell Henry or your family, will you, dear? Because really, last night he was so fascinating—but that dancing! I am sure you feel, with me, we could have died of shame."
CHAPTER VI
When Tamara reached Underwood and saw a letter from her Russian godmother among the pile which awaited her, she felt it was the finger of fate, and when she read it and found it contained not only New Year's wishes, but an invitation couched in affectionate and persuasive terms that she should visit St. Petersburg, she suddenly, and without consulting her family, decided she would go.
"There is something drawing me to Russia," she said to herself. "One gets into the current of things. I felt it in the air. And why should I hesitate now I am free? Why should I not accept, just because one Russian man has horrified me. It is, I suppose, a big city, and perhaps I shall never see him there."
So she announced her decision to the dumfounded household, and in less than a week took the Nord Express.
"The Court, alas! is in mourning,"—her godmother had written,—"so you will see no splendid Court balls, but I daresay we can divert you otherwise, Tamara, and I am so anxious to make the acquaintance of my godchild."
The morning after she left them Aunt Clara expressed herself thus at breakfast:
"I see a great and most unwelcome change in dear Tamara since she returned from Egypt, I had hoped Millicent Hardcastle would be all that was steadying and well-balanced as a companion for her, but it seems this modern restlessness has got into her blood. I tremble to think what ideas she will bring from Russia. Almost savages they are there!—She may be sent to Siberia or something dreadful, and we may never see her again."
"Oh! come Aunt Clara!" Tom Underdown protested, as he buttered his toast. "I think you are a little behind the times. There is a Russian at Oxford with me and he is the decentest chap in the world. You speak as though they almost lived on raw fish!"
"My dear Tom," said Miss Underdown, severely. "I was reading only yesterday, in the 'Christian Clarion,' how one of their Emperors cut off everyone's head. Dreadful customs they have, it seems; and one of their Empresses—Catherine, I think; her name was. Well, dear, it is too shocking to speak of—and most people were sent to the mines!"
"Oh! hang it all, Aunt Clara, you can't have looked at the date! You can hunt up just those jolly kind of stories about our Henry VIII. if you want to, you know, and our Elizabeth wasn't the saint they made out. And as for Siberia, I am going there myself some day, on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Tamara will be all right. I wish to heavens she had taken me with her. We have got dry rot in this house, that is what is the matter with us!"
"Tom!" almost gasped Miss Underdown. "Your manners are extremely displeasing, and the tone of your remarks is far from what one could wish!"
Meanwhile Tamara was speeding on her way to the North, her interest and excitement in her journey deepening with each mile.
The snow and the vast forests impressed her from the train windows. Every smallest shade made its effect upon her brain. Tamara was sensitive to all form and color. She was a person who apprehended things, and from the habit of keeping all her observations to herself perhaps the faculty of perception had grown the keener.
The silence seemed to be the first thing she remarked on reaching the frontier. The porters were so grave and quiet, with their bearded kindly faces, many of them like the saints and Biblical characters in Sunday-school picture books at home.
And finally she arrived at St. Petersburg, and found her godmother waiting for her on the platform. They recognized each other immediately. Tamara had several photographs of the Princess Ardácheff.
"Welcome, ma filleule," that lady cried, while she shook her hand.
"After all these years I can have you in my house."
They said all sorts of mutually agreeable things on their way thither, and they looked at each other shyly.
"She is not beautiful," ran the Princess' comments. "Though she has a superb air of breeding—that is from her poor mother—but her eyes are her father's eyes. She is very sweet, and what a lovely skin—yes, and eyelashes—and probably a figure when one can see beneath the furs—tall and very slender in any case. Yes, I am far from disappointed—far."
And Tamara thought:
"My godmother is a splendid-looking lady! I like her bright brown eyes and that white hair; and what a queer black mole upon her left cheek, like an early eighteenth-century beauty spot. Where have I heard lately of someone with a mole———?
"You fortunately see our city with a fresh mantle of snow, Tamara," the
Princess said, glancing from the automobile window as they sped along.
"It is not, alas! always so white as this."
It appeared wonderful to Tamara—so quite unlike anything she had imagined. The tiny sleighs seemingly too ridiculously small for the enormously padded coachmen on the boxes—the good horses with their sweeping tails—the unusual harness. And, above all, again the silence caused by the snow.
Her first remark was almost a childish one of glee and appreciation, and then she stopped short. What would her godmother think of such an outburst! She must return to the contained self-repression of the time before her visit to the Sphinx—surely in this strange land!
The Princess Ardácheff's frank face was illuminated with a smile.
"She is extremely young," she thought, "in spite of her widowhood, but
I like her, and I know we shall be friends."
Just then they arrived at her house in the Serguiefskaia. It had not appeared to Tamara that they were approaching any particularly fashionable quarter. A fine habitation seemed the neighbor of quite a humble one, and here there was even a shop a few doors down, and except for the very tall windows there was nothing exceptionally imposing on the outside. But when they entered the first hall and the gaily-liveried suisse and two footmen had removed their furs, and the Princess' snow boots, then Tamara perceived she was indeed in a glorious home.
Princess Ardácheff's house was, and is, perhaps the most stately in all
Petersburg.
As they ascended the enormous staircase dividing on the first landing, and reaching the surrounding galleries above in two sweeps, a grave major-domo and more footmen met them, and opened wide the doors of a lofty room. It was full of fine pictures and objets d'art, and though the furniture dated from the time of Alexander II., and even a little earlier—when a flood of frightful taste pervaded all Europe—still the stuffs and the colors were beautiful and rich, and time had softened their crudity into a harmonious whole.
Be the decorations of a house what they will, it is the mistress of it who gives the rooms their soul. If hers is vulgar, so will the rooms be, even though Monsieur Nelson himself has but just designed them in purest Louis XVI. But the worst of all are those which look as though their owner constantly attended bazaars, and brought the superfluous horrors she secured there back with her. Then there are vapid rooms, and anaemic rooms, and fiddly, and messy rooms, and there are monuments of wealth with no individuality at all.
Tamara felt all these nuances directly, and she knew that here dwelt a woman of natural refinement and a broad outlook.
She sank into an old-fashioned sofa, covered with silk a quarter of an inch thick, and the atmosphere seemed to breathe life and completeness.
Tea and quantities of different little bonnes bouches awaited them. But if there was a samovar she did not recognize it as such; in fact, she had seen nothing which many writers describe as "Russian."
The Princess talked on in a fashion of perfect simplicity and directness. She told her that her friends would all welcome her and be glad that an Englishwoman should really see their country, and find it was not at all the grotesque place which fancy painted it.
"We are so far away that you do not even imagine us," she said. "You English have read that there was an Ivan the Terrible and a Peter the Great, who crushed through your Evelyn's hedges, and was a giant of seven foot high! Many of you believe wolves prowl in the streets at night, and that among the highest society Nihilists stalk, disguised as heaven knows what! While the sudden disappearance of a member of any great or small family can be accounted for by a nocturnal visit of police, and a transportation in chains to Siberian mines! Is it not so, Tamara?"
Tamara laughed. "Yes, indeed," she said. "I am sure that is what Aunt
Clara thinks now! Are we not a ridiculously insular people, Marraine?"
She said the last word timidly and put out her hand. "May I call you Marraine, Princess?" she asked. "I never knew my mother, and it sounds nice."
"Indeed, yes!" the Princess said, and she rose and kissed Tamara. "Your mother was very dear to me, long ago, before you were born, we spent a wild season together of youth and happiness. You shall take the place of my child Tamara, if she had lived."
Before they had finished drinking their tea, other guests came in—a tall old General in a beautiful uniform, and two ladies, one young and the other old. They all spoke English perfectly, and were so agreeable and sans façon, Tamara's first impression was distinctly good.
Presently she heard the elder lady say to her godmother:
"Have you seen Gritzko since his return, Vera? One hears he has a wild fit on and is at Milasláv with———" the rest of the words were almost whispered. Tamara found herself unpleasantly on the alert—how ridiculous, though, she thought—Gritzko!—there might be a dozen Gritzkos in Petersburg.
"No, he returns tonight," Princess Ardácheff said; "but I never listen to these tales, and as no matter what he does we all forgive him, and let him fly back into our good graces as soon as he purses up that handsome mouth of his—it is superfluous to make critiques upon his conduct—it seems to me!"
The lady appeared to agree to this, for she laughed, and they talked of other things, and soon all left.
And when they were gone—"Tonight I have one or two of my nicest friends dining," the Princess said, "whom I wish you to know, so I thought if you rested now you would not be too tired for a little society," and she carried Tamara off to her warm comfortable bedroom, an immense apartment in gorgeous Empire taste, and here was a great bunch of roses to greet her, and her maid could be seen unpacking in the ante-chamber beyond.
The company, ten or twelve of them, were all assembled when Tamara reached one of the great salons, which opened from the galleries surrounding the marble hall. She came in—a slender willowy creature, with a gentle smile of contrition—was she late?
And then the presentations took place. What struck her first was that dark or fair, fat-faced or thin, high foreheads or low, all the ladies wore coiffées exactly the same—the hair brushed up from the forehead and tightly ondulés. It gave a look of universal distinction, but in some cases was not very becoming. They were beautifully dressed in mourning, and no one seemed to have much of a complexion, from an English point of view, but before the end of the evening Tamara felt she had never met women with such charm. Surely no other country could produce the same types, perfectly simple in manner—perfectly at ease. Extremely highly educated, with a wide range of subjects, and a knowledge of European literature which must be unsurpassed. Afterwards when she knew them better she realized that here was one place left in Europe where there were no parvenues and no snobs—or if there were any, they were beautifully concealed. Such absolute simplicity and charm can only stay in a society where no one is trying "to arrive," all being there naturally by birth. There could be no room for the métier adopted by several impecunious English ladies of title—that of foisting anyone, however unsuitable, upon society and their friends for a well-gilded consideration.
In Russia, at least, it is the round peg in the round hole. No square peg would have a chance of admission. Thus there are the ease and elegance of one large and interesting family.
It seemed to Tamara that each one was endowed with natural fascination. They made no "frais" for her. There were no compliments or gushing welcomes. They were just casual and delightful and made her feel at home and happy with them all.
They took "Zacouska" in an ante-room. Such quantities of strange dishes! There seemed enough for a whole meal, and Tamara wondered how it would be possible to eat anything further! At dinner she sat between a tall old Prince and a diplomat. The uniforms pleased her and the glorious pearls of the ladies. Such pearls—worth a king's ransom!
Then she was interested to see the many different sorts of wine, and the extreme richness of the food, and finally the shortness of the meal.
The pretty custom of the men kissing the hostess' hand as they all left the dining-room together, she found delightful.
They were drinking coffee in the blue salon, and most of the party had retired to the bridge tables laid out, and Tamara, who played too badly, sat by the fire with her godmother and another lady, when suddenly the door opened and, with an air of complete insouciance and assurance, Prince Milaslávski came in.
"I want some coffee, Tantine," he said, kissing the Princess' hand, while he nodded to everyone else. "I was passing and so came in to get it."
"Gritzko—back again!" the whole company cried, and the Princess, beaming upon him fond smiles, gave him the coffee, while she murmured her glad welcome.
The society now began to chaff him as to his doings, which he took with the utmost sang froid.
"That old cat of a Marianne Mariuski sets about as usual one of her stories. I am having an orgie at Milasláv, and this time with a seraglio of Egyptian houris—the truth being I only brought back by the merest chance one small troupe of Alexandrian dancers, and two performing bears. They made us laugh for three days, Serge, Sasha, and the rest!"
"Gritzko, will you never learn wisdom," said one lady, the Princess Shébanoff, plaintively, while the others all laughed. "Were they pretty, and what were they like?" they asked.
"The bears?—little angels, especially Fatima,—and with the manners of Princesses," and he bowed to an old lady who was surveying him severely through her pince-nez, while she held her cards awry. "Which reminds me we are failing in ours, Tantine, you have not presented me to the English lady, who is, I perceive, a stranger."
During all this Tamara had sat cold and silent. She was angry with herself that this man's entrance should cause her such emotion—or rather commotion and sensation. Why should he make her feel nervous and stupid, unsure of herself, and uncertain what to do. Invariably he placed her at some disadvantage, and left the settling of their relations to himself. Whereas all such regulations ought to have been in her hands. Now she was without choice again, she could only bow stiffly as her godmother said his name and her name, and Prince Milaslávski took a chair by her side and began making politenesses as though he were really a stranger.
Had she just arrived? Did she find Russia very cold? Was she going to stay long? etc., etc.
To all of which Tamara answered in monosyllables, while two bright spots of rose color burned in her cheeks.
The Prince was astonishingly good looking in his Cossack's uniform, and his eyes had a laugh in them, but a shadow round as if bed had not seen him for several nights.
His whole manner to Tamara was different from any shade it had formerly worn. It was as if a courtly Russian were welcoming an honored guest in his aunt's house.
He did not mock or tease, or announce startling truths; he was pleasant and ordinary and serene.
He and the Princess Ardácheff were no real blood relations; the first wife of her late husband had been his mother's sister, but the tradition of aunt had gone on in the family and the Princess loved him almost as a son. He had always called her "Tantine" as though she had been his real aunt.
"What did you think of Gritzko Milaslávski, Tamara?" she asked, when all the guests were gone, and the two had retired to Tamara's room. "He is one of the dearest characters when you know him—but a terrible tease."
"He seemed very pleasant," Tamara said blankly, while she picked up a book. Even to speak of him caused her unease.
"He is not at all the type of an ordinary Russian," the Princess continued. "He has traveled so much, he is so fin there is almost a French touch in him. I am afraid you will find our young men rather dull as a rule. They are very hard worked at their military duties, and have not much time for les dames du monde."
"No?" said Tamara. "Well, the women seem to make up for it. I have never met so many clever delightful ones."
"It is our education," the Princess said. "You see from babyhood we learn many languages, and thus the literatures of countries are open to us before we begin to analyze anything, and English especially we know well, because in that language there are so many books for young girls."
"In England," said Tamara, "what may be given to young girls seems to rule everything, no one is allowed a thought for herself, every idea almost is brought down to that dead level—one rebels after a while—but tell me, Marraine, if I may ask, what makes them all so tired and gray looking, the people I have seen tonight I mean. Do they sit up very late at parties, or what is it?"
"In the season, yes, but it is not that, it is our climate and our hot closed-up rooms, and the impossibility of taking proper exercise. In the summer you will not know them for the same faces."
And then she kissed her goddaughter good-night, but just at the door she paused. "You were not shocked about the Alexandrian dancers, I hope, child?" she said. "If one knew the truth, they were poor people who were starving, probably, and Gritzko paid them money and helped them out of the kindness of his heart—those are the sort of things he generally does I find when I investigate, so I never pay attention to what he says."
Tamara, left to herself, gazed into the glowing embers of her wood fire.
"I wonder—I wonder," she said. But what she wondered she hardly dared admit—even to herself.
CHAPTER VII
The next day was the last of the Russian old year—the 13th of January new style—and when Tamara appeared about ten o'clock in her godmother's own sitting-room, a charming apartment full of the most interesting miniatures and bibelots collected by the great Ardácheff, friend of Catherine II., she found the Princess already busy at her writing table.
"Good-morning, my child," she said. "You behold me up and working at a time when most of my countrywomen are not yet in their baths. We keep late hours here in the winter, while it is dark and cold. You will get quite accustomed to going to bed at two and rising at ten; but to-night, if it pleases you to fall in with what is on the tapis for you, I fear it will be even four in the morning before you sleep. Prince Milaslávski has telephoned that he gives a party at his house on the Fontonka, to dine first and then go on to a café to hear the Bohemians sing. It is a peculiarity of the place these Bohemians—we shall drink in the New Year and then go. It will not bore you. No? Then it is decided," and she pressed a lovely little Faberger enamel bell which lay on the table near, and one of the innumerable servants, who seemed to be always waiting in the galleries, appeared. She spoke to him in Russian, and then took up the telephone by her side, and presently was in communication with the person she had called.
"It is thou, Gritzko? Awake? Of course she is awake, and here in the room. Yes, it is arranged—we dine—not until nine o'clock?—you cannot be in before. Bon. Now promise you will be good.—Indeed, yes.—Of course any English lady would be shocked at you—So!—I tell you she is in the room—pray be more discreet," and she smiled at Tamara, and then continued her conversation. "No, I will not talk in Russian, it is very rude.—If you are not completely sage at dinner we shall not go on.—I am serious! Well, good-bye,"—and with a laugh the Princess put the receiver down.
"He says nothing would shock you—he is sure you understand the world! Well, we must amuse ourselves, and try and restrain him if he grows too wild."
"He is often wild, then?" Tamara said.
The Princess rose and stood by the window looking out on the thickly falling snow.
"I am afraid—a little—yes, though never in the wrong situation; above all things Gritzko is a gentleman; but sometimes I wish he would take life less as a game. One cannot help speculating how it can end."
"Has he no family?" Tamara asked.
"No, everyone is dead. His mother worshipped him, but she died when he was scarcely eighteen, and his father before that. His mother is his adored memory. In all the mad scenes which he and his companions, I am afraid, have enacted in the Fontonka house, there is one set of rooms no one has dared to enter—her rooms—and he keeps flowers there, and an ever-burning lamp. There is a strange touch of sentiment and melancholy in Gritzko, and of religion too. Sometimes I think he is unhappy, and then he goes off to his castle in the Caucasus or to Milasláv, and no one sees him for weeks. Last year we hoped he would marry a charming Polish girl—he quite paid her attention for several nights; but he said she laughed one day when he felt sad, and answered seriously when he was gay, and made crunching noises with her teeth when she ate biscuits!—and her mother was fat and she might grow so too! And for these serious reasons he could not face her at breakfast for the rest of his life! Thus that came to an end. No one has any influence upon him. I have given up trying. One must accept him as he is, or leave him alone—he will go his own way."
Tamara had ceased fighting with herself about the interest she took in conversations relating to the Prince. She could not restrain her desire to hear of him, but she explained it now by telling herself he was a rather lurid and unusual foreign character, which must naturally be an interesting study for a stranger.
"It was an escape for the girl at least, perhaps," she said, when the
Princess paused.
"Of that I am not sure; he is so tender to children and animals, and his soul is full of generosity and poetry—and justice too. Poor Gritzko," and the Princess sighed.
Then Tamara remembered their conversation during their night ride from the Sphinx, and she felt again the humiliating certainty of how commonplace he must have found her.
Presently the Princess took her to see the house. Every room filled with relics of the grand owners who had gone before. There were portraits of Peter the Great, and the splendid Catherine, in almost every room.
"An Empress so much misjudged in your country, Tamara," her godmother said. "She had the soul and the necessities of a man, but she was truly great."
Tamara gazed up at the proud débonnaire face, and she thought how at home they would think of the most unconventional part of her character, to the obliteration of all other aspects, and each moment she was realizing how ridiculous and narrow was the view from the standpoint from which she had been made to look at life.
For luncheon quite a number of guests arrived, the Princess, she found afterward, was hardly ever alone.
"I don't care to go out, Tamara, as a rule, to déjeuner," she said, "but I love my house to be filled with young people and mirth."
The names were very difficult for Tamara to catch, especially as they all called each other by their petits noms—all having been friends since babyhood, if not, as often was the case, related by ties of blood; but at last she began to know that "Olga" was the Countess Gléboff, and "Sonia," the Princess Solentzeff-Zasiekin—both young, under thirty, and both attractive and quite sans gêne.
"Olga" was little and plump, with an oval face and rather prominent eyes, but with a way of saying things which enchanted Tamara's ear. Her manner was casualness itself, and had a wonderful charm; and another thing struck her now that she saw them in daylight, not a single woman present—and there were six or seven at least—had even the slightest powder on her face. They were as nature made them, not the faintest aid from art in any way. "They cannot be at all coquette like the French," she thought, "or even like us in England, or they could not all do their hair like that whether it suits them or no! But what charm they have—much more than we, or the French, or any one I know."
They were all so amusing and gay at lunch and talked of teeny scandals with a whimsical humor at themselves for being so small, which was delightful, and no one said anything spiteful or mean. Quantities of pleasant things were planned, and Tamara found her days arranged for a week ahead.
That night, as they drove to Prince Milaslávski's dinner, an annoying sense of excitement possessed Tamara. She refused to ask herself why. Curiosity to see the house of this strange man—most likely—in any case, emotion enough to make her eyes bright.
It was one of the oldest houses in Petersburg, built in the time of Catherine, about 1768, and although in a highly florid rococo style of decoration, as though something gorgeous and barbaric had amalgamated with the Louis XV., still it had escaped the terrible wave of 1850 vandalism, and stood, except for a few Empire rooms, a monument of its time.
Everything about it interested Tamara. The strange Cossack servants in the hall; the splendid staircase of stone and marble, and then finally they reached the salons above.
"One can see no woman lives here," she thought, though the one they entered was comfortable enough. Huge English leather armchairs elbowed some massively gilt seats of the time of Nicholas I., and an ugly English high fender with its padded seat, surrounded the blazing log fire.
The guests were all assembled, but host, there was not!
"What an impertinence to keep them waiting like this," Tamara thought! However, no one seemed to mind but herself, and they all stood laughing or sitting on the fender in the best of spirits.
"I will bet you," said Olga Gléboff, in her attractive voice, "that Gritzko comes in with no apology, and that we shall none of us be able to drag from him where he has been!"
As she spoke he entered the room.
"Ah! you are all very early," he said, shaking their hands in frank welcome. "So good of you, dear friends. Perhaps I am a little late, you will forgive me, I know; and now for Zacouska, a wolf is tearing at my vitals, I feel, and yours too. It is nine o'clock!"
Then the dining-room doors at the side opened and they all went in en bande, and gathered round the high table, where they began to eat like hungry natural people, selecting the dishes they wanted. Some of the men taking immense spoonfuls of caviare, and spreading them on bread, like children with jam. All were so joyous and so perfectly without ceremony. Nothing could be more agreeable than this society, Tamara thought.
Some of the men were elderly, and a number the husbands of the various ladies; there were a few young officers and several diplomats from the Embassies, too. But young or old, all were gay and ready to enjoy life.
"You must taste some vodka, Madame," Prince Milaslávski said, pouring a small glass at Tamara's side. "You will not like it, but it is Russian, and you must learn. See I take some, too, and drink your health!"
Tamara bowed and sipped the stuff, which she found very nasty, with a whiff of ether in it. And then they all trouped to the large table in this huge dining-hall.
Tamara sat on her host's right hand, and Princess Sonia on his left.
To-night his coat was brown and the underdress black, it was quite as becoming as the others she had seen him in, with the strange belt and gold and silver trimmings and the Eastern hang of it all, and his great dark gray-blue eyes blazed at Tamara now and then with a challenge in them she could hardly withstand.
"Now tell us, Gritzko, what did you do in Egypt this year?" Princess Sonia said. "It is the first time that no histories of your ways have come to our ears—were you ill?—or bored? We feared you were dead."
"On the contrary, I was greatly alive," he answered gravely. "I was studying mummies and falling in love with the Sphinx. And just at the end I had a most interesting kind of experience; I came upon what looked like a woman, but turned out to be a mummy and later froze into a block of ice!"
"Gritzko!" they called in chorus. "Can anyone invent such impossible stories as you!"
"I assure you I am speaking the truth. Is it not so, Madame?" And he looked at Tamara and smiled with fleeting merry mockery in his eyes. "See," and he again turned to his guests, "Madame has been in Egypt she tells me, and should be able to vouch for my truth."
Tamara pulled herself together.
"I think the Sphinx must have cast a spell over you, Prince," she said, "so that you could not distinguish the real from the false. I saw no women who were mummies and then turned into ice!"
Some one distracted Princess Sonia's attention for a moment, and the
Prince whispered, "One can melt ice!"
"To find a mummy?" Tamara asked with grave innocence. "That would be the inverse rotation."
"And lastly a woman—in one's arms," the Prince said.
Tamara turned to her neighbor and became engrossed in his conversation for the rest of the repast.
All the women, and nearly all the men, spoke English perfectly, and their good manners were such that even this large party talked in the strange guest's language among themselves.
"One must converse now as long as one can," her neighbor told her, "because the moment we have had coffee everyone will play bridge, and no further sense will be got out of them. We are a little behind the rest of the world always in Petersburg, and while in England and Paris this game has had its day, here we are still in its claws to a point of madness, as Madame will see."
And thus it fell about.
Prince Milaslávski gave Tamara his arm and they found coffee awaiting them in the salon when they returned there, and at once the rubbers were made up. And with faces of grave pre-occupation this lately merry company sat down to their game, leaving only the Prince and one lady and Tamara unprovided for.
"Yes, I can play," she had said, when she was asked, "but it bores me so, and I do it so badly; may I not watch you instead?"
The lady who made the third had not these ideas, and she sat down near a table ready to cut in. Thus the host and his English guest were left practically alone.
"I did not mean you to play," he said, "I knew you couldn't—I arranged it like this."
"Why did you know I couldn't?" Tamara asked. "I am too stupid perhaps you think!"
"Yes—too stupid and—too sweet."
"I am neither stupid—nor sweet!" and her eyes flashed.
"Probably not, but you seem so to me.—Now don't get angry at once, it makes our acquaintance so fatiguing, I have each time to be presented over again."
Then Tamara laughed.
"It really is all very funny," she said.
"And how is the estimable Mrs. Hardcastle?" he asked, when he had laughed too—his joyous laugh. "This is a safe subject and we can sit on the fender without your wanting to push me into the fire over it."
"I am not at all sure of that," answered Tamara. She could not resist his charm, she could not continue quarrelling with him; somehow it seemed too difficult here in his own house, so she smiled as she went on. "If you laugh at my Millicent, I shall get very angry indeed."
"Laugh at your Millicent! The idea is miles from my brain—did not I tell you when I could find a wife like that I would marry—what more can I say!" and the Prince looked at her with supreme gravity. "Did she tell 'Henry' that a devil of a Russian bear had got drunk and flung a gipsy into the sea?"
"Possibly. Why were you so—horrible that night?"
"Was I horrible?"
"Probably not, but you seemed so to me," Tamara quoted his late words.
"I seem horrible—and you seem sweet."
"Surely the stupid comes in too!"
"Undoubtedly, but Russia will cure that, you will not go away for a long time."
"In less than four weeks."
"We shall see," and the Prince got up and lit another cigarette. "You do not smoke either? What a little good prude!"
"I am not a prude!" Tamara's ire rose again. "I have tried often with my brother Tom, and it always makes me sick. I would be a fool, not a prude, to go on, would not I?"
"I am not forcing you to smoke. I like your pretty teeth best as they are!"
Rebellion shook Tamara. It was his attitude toward her—one of supreme unconcerned command—as though he had a perfect right to take his pleasure out of her conversation, and play upon her emotions, according to his mood. She could have boxed his ears.
"How long ago is it since we danced in Egypt—a fortnight, or more? You move well, but you don't know anything about dancing," he went on. "Dancing is either a ridiculous jumping about of fools, who have no more understanding of its meaning than a parcel of marionettes. Or it is an expression of some sort of emotion. The Greeks understood that in their Orchiesis, each feeling had its corresponding movement. For me it means a number of things. When a woman is slender and pliant and smooth of step, and if she pleases me otherwise, then it is not waste of time!—Tonight I shall probably get drunk again," and he flicked the ash off his cigarette with his little finger; and even though Tamara was again annoyed with him, she could not help noticing that his hands were fine and strong.
"But you were not drunk on the ship—you could not even plead that," she said, almost shocked at herself for speaking of anything so horrible.
"It is the same thing. I feel a mad supercharge of life—an intoxication of the senses, perhaps. It has only one advantage over the champagne result. I am steady on my feet, and my voice is not thick!"
Tamara did not speak.
"I wonder what this music we shall hear will say to you. Will it make the milk and water you call blood in your veins race?—it will amuse me to see."
"I am not made for your amusement, Prince. How dare you always treat me as you do?" And Tamara drew herself up haughtily. "And if my veins contain milk and water, it is at least my own."
"You dared me once before, Madame," he said, smiling provokingly. "Do you think it is quite wise of you to try it again?"
"I do not care if it is wise or no. I hate you!" almost hissed poor
Tamara.
Then his eyes blazed, as she had never seen them yet. He moved nearer to her, and spoke in a low concentrated voice.
"It is a challenge. Good. Now listen to what I say. In a little short time you shall love me. That haughty little head shall lie here on my breast without a struggle, and I shall kiss your lips until you cannot breathe."
For the second time in her life Tamara went dead white—he saw her pale even to her lips. And since the moment was not yet, and since his mood was not now to make her suffer, he bent over with contrition and asked her to forgive him in a tender voice.
"Madame—I am only joking—but I am a brute," he said.
Tamara rose and walked to the bridge tables, furious with herself that he could have seen his power over her, even though it were only to cause rage.
He came up behind her and sat down and began to talk nicely again—about the sights to be seen in the capital, and the interesting museums and collections of pictures and arms. Nothing could be more correct than his manner, and the bridge players who were within earshot smiled, while Countess Olga thought.
"Either Gritzko has just been making love to the Englishwoman, or he is immensely bored—The latter from his face."
CHAPTER VIII
The company stopped their game about a quarter to twelve, and tables and champagne and glasses were brought in, and hand in hand they made a circle and drank in the New Year.
Tamara took care to stand by Princess Ardácheff, but her host looked at her as he raised his glass. Then they descended to the hall, and were wrapped in their furs again to go to the café where the Bohemians were to sing.
Tamara and the Princess were already in the latter's coupé when Prince
Milaslávski called out: "Tantine—! take me too—I am slim and can sit
between you, and I want to arrive soon, I have sent my motor on with
Serge and Valonne."
And without waiting he got in.
They had to sit very close, and Tamara became incensed with herself, because in spite of all her late rage with the Prince, she experienced a sensation which was disturbing and unknown. The magnetic personality of the man was so strong. He bent and whispered something to the Princess, and then as though sharing a secret, he leaned the other way, and whispered to Tamara, too. The words were nothing, only some ordinary nonsense, of which she took no heed. But as he spoke his lips touched her ear. A wild thrill ran through her, she almost trembled, so violent was the emotion the little seemingly accidental caress caused. A feeling she had never realized in the whole of her life before. Why did he tease her so. Why did he always behave in this maddening manner! and choose moments when she was defenseless and could make no move. Of one thing she was certain, if she should stay on in Russia she must come to some understanding with him if possible, and prevent any more of these ways—absolutely insulting to her self-respect.
So she shrunk back in her corner and gave no reply.
"Are you angry with me?" he whispered. "It was the shaking of the automobile which caused me to come too near you. Forgive me, I will try not to sin again,"—but as he spoke he repeated his offense!
Tamara clasped her hands together, tightly, and answered in the coldest voice—
"I did not notice anything, Prince, it must be a guilty conscience which causes you to apologize."
"In that case then all is well!" and he laughed softly.
The Princess now joined in the conversation.
"Gritzko, you must tell Mrs. Loraine how these gipsies are, and what she will hear—she will think it otherwise so strange."
He turned to Tamara at once.
"They are a queer people who dwell in a clan. They sing like the fiend—one hates it or loves it, but it gets on the nerves, and if a man should fancy one of them, he must pay the chief, not the girl. Then they are faithful and money won't tempt them away. But if the man makes them jealous, they run a knife into his back."
"It sounds exciting at all events," Tamara said.
"It is an acquired taste, and if you have a particularly sensitive ear the music will make you feel inclined to scream. It drives me mad."
"Gritzko," the Princess whispered to him. "You promise to be sage, dear boy, do you not? Sometimes you alarm me when you go too far."
"Tantine!" and he kissed her hand. "Your words are law!"
"Alas! if that were only true," she said with a sigh.
"Tonight all shall be suited to the eleven thousand virgins!" and he laughed. "Or shall I say suited to an English grande dame—which is the same!"
They had crossed the Neva by now, and presently arrived at a building with a gloomy looking door, and so to a dingy hall, in which a few waiters were scurrying about. They seemed to go through endless shabby passages, like those of a lunatic asylum, and finally arrived at a large and empty room—empty so far as people were concerned—for at the end there were sofas and a long narrow table, and a few smaller ones with chairs.
The tables were already laid, with dishes of raw ham and salted almonds and various bonnes bouches, while brilliant candelabra shone amidst numerous bottles of champagne.
The company seemed to have forgotten the gloom that playing bridge had brought over them, and were as gay again as one could wish, while divesting themselves of their furs and snow-boots.
And soon Tamara found herself seated on the middle sofa behind the long table, Count Gléboff on her right, and the French Secretary, Count Valonne, at her left, while beyond him was Princess Sonia, and near by all the rest.
Their host stood up in front, a brimming glass in his hand.
Then there filed in about twenty-five of the most unattractive animal-looking females, dressed in ordinary hideous clothes, who all took their seats on a row of chairs at the farther end. They wore no national costume nor anything to attract the eye, but were simply garbed as concierges or shop-girls might have been; and some were old, gray-haired women, and one had even a swollen face tied up in a black scarf! How could it be possible that any of these could be the "fancy" of a man!
They were followed by about ten dark, beetle-browed males, who carried guitars.
These were the famous Bohemians! Their appearance at all events was disillusioning enough. Tamara's disappointment was immense.
But presently when they began to sing she realized that there was something—something in their music—even though it was of an intense unrest.
She found it was the custom for them to sing a weird chant song on the name of each guest, and every one must drink to this guest's health, all standing, and quaffing the glasses of champagne down at one draught.
That they all remained sober at the end of the evening seemed to do great credit to their heads, for Tamara, completely unaccustomed to the smoke and the warm room, feared even to sip at her glass.
The toasting over, every one sat down, Prince Milaslávski and a Pole being the only two in front of the table, and they with immense spirit chaffed the company, and called the tunes.
The music was of the most wild, a queer metallic sound, and the airs were full of unexpected harmonies and nerve-racking chords. It fired the sense, in spite of the hideous singers.
They all sat there with perfectly immovable faces and entirely still hands,—singing without gesticulations what were evidently passionate love-songs! Nothing could have been more incongruous or grotesque!
But the fascination of it grew and grew. Every one of their ugly faces remained printed on Tamara's brain. Long afterward she would see them in dreams.
How little we yet know of the force of sounds! How little we know of any of the great currents which affect the world and human life!
And music above any other art stirs the sense. Probably the Greek myth of Orpheus and his lute was not a myth after all; perhaps Orpheus had mastered the occult knowledge of this great power. Surely it would be worth some learned scientist's while to investigate from a psychological point of view how it is, and why it is, that certain chords cause certain emotions, and give base or elevating visions to human souls.
The music of these gipsies was of the devil, it seemed to Tamara, and she was not surprised at the wild look in Prince Milaslávski's eyes, for she herself—she, well brought up, conventionally crushed English Tamara,—felt a strange quickening of the pulse.
After an hour or so of this music, two of the younger Bohemian women began to dance, not in the least with the movements that had shocked Mrs. Hardcastle in the Alexandrian troupe on the ship, but a foolish valsing, while the shoulders rose and fell and quivered like the flapping wings of some bird. The shoulders seemed the talented part, not the body or hips.
And then about three o'clock the entire troupe filed out of the room for refreshment and rest. The atmosphere was thick with smoke, and heated to an incredible extent. Some one started to play the piano, and every one began to dance a wild round—a mazurka, perhaps—and Tamara found herself clasped tightly in the arms of her Prince.
She did not know the step, but they valsed to the tune, and all the time he was whispering mad things in Russian in her ear. She could not correct him, because she did not know what they might mean.
"Doushka," he said at last. "So you are awake; so it is not milk and water after all in those pretty blue veins! God! I will teach you to live!"
And Tamara was not angry; she felt nothing except an unreasoning pleasure and exultation.
The amateur bandsman came to a stop, and another took his place; but the spell fortunately was broken, and she could pull herself together and return to sane ways.
"I am tired," she said, when the Prince would have gone on, "and I am almost faint for want of air." So he opened a window and left her for a moment in peace.
She danced again with the first man who asked her, going quickly from one to another so as to avoid having to be too often held by the Prince. But each time she felt his arm round her, back again would steal the delicious mad thrill.
"I hope you are amusing yourself, dear child," her godmother said.
"This is a Russian scene; you would not see it in any other land."
And indeed Tamara was happy, in spite of her agitation and unrest.
She sat down now with Olga Gléboff, and they watched the others while they took breath. The Prince was dancing with Princess Shébanoff, and her charming face was turned up to him with an adoring smile.
"Poor Tatiane,—" Countess Olga said low to herself.
When the gipsies returned, their music grew wilder than ever, and some of the solos seemed to touch responsive chords in Tamara's very bones.
The Prince sat next her on the sofa now, and every few moments he would bend over to take an almond, or light a cigarette, so that he touched her apparently without intention, but nevertheless with intent. And the same new and intoxicating sensation would steal through her, and she would draw her slender figure away and try to be stiff and severe, but with no effect.
It was long after five o'clock before it was all done, and they began to wrap up and say "Goodnight." And the troupe, bowing, went out to another engagement they had.
"They sing all night and sleep in the day," Count Gléboff told Tamara, as they descended the stairs. "At this time of the year they never see daylight, only sometimes the dawn."
"Tantine," said the Prince, "order your motor to go back. I sent for my troika, and it is here. We must show Madame Loraine what a sleigh feels like."
And the Princess agreed.
Oh! the pleasure Tamara found when presently they were flying over the snow, the side horses galloping with swift, sure feet. And under the furs she and her godmother felt no cold, while Gritzko, this wild Prince, sat facing them, his splendid eyes ablaze.
Presently they stopped and looked out on the Gulf of Finland and a vast view. Above were countless stars and a young, rising moon.
It was striking seven as they went to their rooms.
Such was Tamara's first outing in this land of the North.
CHAPTER IX
Six days went past before Tamara again saw the Prince. Whether he was busy or kept away because he wished to, she did not know—and would not ask—but a piqued sensation gradually began to rise as she thought of him.
"I must arrange for you to go to Tsarsköi-Sélo to see the ceremony of the Emperor blessing the waters on the 6th of our January, Tamara," her godmother said, a day or two after the Bohemian feast. "I have seen it so often, and I do not wish to stand about in the cold, but Sonia's husband is one of the aides-de-camp, and, as you know, she lives at Tsarsköi. Olga is going out there, and will take you with her, and you three can go on; it will interest you, I am sure."
And Tamara had gladly acquiesced.
Tsarsköi-Sélo, which they reached after half an hour's train, seemed such a quaint place to her. Like some summer resort made up of wooden villas, only now they were all covered with snow. She and Countess Olga had gone together to Princess Sonia's house, and from there to the palace grounds, where they followed snow-cleared paths to a sort of little temple near the lake, where they were allowed to stand just outside the line of Cossacks and watch for the coming procession.
The sky was heavy, and soon the snow began to fall intermittently in big, fluffy flakes. This background of white showed up the brilliant scarlet uniforms of the escort. Standing in long rows, they were an imposing sight. And Tamara admired their attractive faces, many so much more finely cut than the guards further on. They wore fierce beards, and they all seemed to be extremely tall and slim, with waists which would not have disgraced a girl. And, at the end of the line at the corner where they stood, she suddenly saw the Prince. He was talking to some other officers, and apparently did not see them. Tamara grew angry with herself at finding how the very sight of him moved her. The procession, soon seen advancing, was as a lesser interest, her whole real concentration being upon one scarlet form.
From the time the signal was given that the Emperor had started from the palace all the heads were bare—bare in a temperature many degrees below freezing and in falling snow! It was the Prince who gave the word of command, and while he stood at attention she watched his face. It was severe and rigid, like the face of a statue. On duty he was evidently a different creature from the wild Gritzko of gipsy suppers. But there was no use arguing with herself—he attracted her in every case.
Then the procession advanced, and she looked at it with growing amazement. This wonderful nation! so full of superstition and yet of common sense. It seemed astonishing that grown-up people should seriously assist at this ceremony of sentiment.
First came the choir-boys with thick coats covering their scarlet gowns; then a company of singing men; then the priests in their magnificent robes of gold and silver, and then the Emperor, alone and bareheaded. Afterward followed the Grand Dukes and the standard of every guard regiment and finally all the aides-de-camp.
When the Emperor passed she glanced again at the Prince. The setness of his face had given place to a look of devotion. There was evidently a great love for his master in his strange soul. When the last figure had moved beyond the little temple corner, the tension of all was relaxed, and they stood at ease again, and Gritzko appeared to perceive the party of ladies, and smiled.
"I am coming to get some hot coffee after lunch, Sonia," he called out.
"I promised Marie."
"Does it not give them cold?" Tamara asked, as she looked at the
Cossacks' almost shaven bare heads. "And they have no great-coats on!
What can they be made of, poor things?"
"They get accustomed to it, and it is not at all cold to-day, fortunately," Countess Olga said. "They would have their furs on if it were. Don't you think they are splendid men? I love to see them in their scarlet; they only wear it on special occasions and when they are with the Emperor, or at Court balls or birthdays. I am so glad you see Gritzko in his."
Tamara did not say she had already seen the Prince in the scarlet coat; none of her new friends were aware that they had met before in Egypt.
All this time the guns were firing, and soon the ceremony of dipping the cross in the water was over, and the procession started back again.
It was the same as when it came, only the priests were wiping the cross in a napkin, and presently all passed out of sight toward the palace, and the three ladies walked quickly back to the waiting sleigh, half-frozen with cold.
About ten minutes after they had finished lunch, and were sitting at coffee in Princess Sonia's cosy salon—so fresh and charming and like an English country house—they heard a good deal of noise in the passage, and the Prince came in. He was followed by a sturdy boy of eight, and carried in his arms a tiny girl, whose poor small body looked wizened, while in her little arms she held a crutch.
"We met in the hall—my friend Marie and I," he said, as he bent to kiss Princess Sonia's hand, and then the other two ladies', "and we have a great deal to say to one another."
"These are my children, Mrs. Loraine," Princess Sonia said. "They were coming down to see you; but now Gritzko has appeared we shall receive no attention, I fear," and she laughed happily, while the little boy came forward, and with beautiful manners kissed Tamara's hand.
"You are an English lady," he said, without the slightest accent. "Have you a little boy, too?"
Tamara was obliged to own she had no children, which he seemed to think very unfortunate.
"Marie always has to have her own way, but while she is with Gritzko she is generally good," he announced.
"How splendidly you speak English!" Tamara said. "And only eight years old! I suppose you can talk French, too, as well as Russian?"
"Naturally, of course," he replied, with fine contempt. "But I'll tell you something—German I do very badly. We have a German governess, and I hate her. Her mouth is too full of teeth."
"That certainly is a disadvantage," Tamara agreed.
"When Gritzko gets up with us he makes her in a fine rage! She spluttered so at him last week the bottom row fell out. We were glad!"
Princess Sonia now interrupted: "What are you saying, Peter?" she said. "Poor Fräulein! You know I shall have to forbid Gritzko from going to tea with you. You are all so naughty when you get together!"
There was at once a fierce scream from the other side of the room.
"Maman! we will have Gritzko to tea! I love him!—Je l'aime!" and the poor crippled tiny Marie nearly strangled her friend with a frantic embrace.
"You see, Maman, we defy you!" the Prince said, when he could speak.
The little boy now joined his sister, and both soon shrieked with laughter over some impossible tale which was being poured into their ears; and Princess Sonia said softly to Tamara:
"He is too wonderful with children—Gritzko—when he happens to like them—isn't he, Olga? All of ours simply adore him, and I can never tell you of his goodness and gentleness to Marie last year when she had her dreadful accident. The poor little one will be well some day, we hope, and so I do not allow myself to be sad about it; but it was a terrible grief."
Tamara looked her sympathy, while she murmured a few words. Princess
Sonia was such a sweet and charming lady.
More visitors now came in, and they all drank their coffee and tea, but the Prince paid no attention to any one beyond casual greetings; he continued his absorbing conversation with his small friends.
Tamara was surprised at this new side of him. It touched her. And he was such a gloriously good-looking picture as he sat there in his scarlet coat, while Marie played with the silver cartridges across his breast, and Peter with his dagger.
When she and Countess Olga left to catch an early afternoon train he came too. He had to be back in Petersburg, he said. Nothing could look more desolate than the tracts of country seen from the train windows, so near the capital and yet wild, uncultivated spaces, part almost like a marsh. There seemed to be nothing living but the lonely soldiers who guarded the Royal line a hundred yards or so off. It depressed Tamara as she gazed out, and she unconsciously sighed, while a sad look came into her eyes.
The Prince and Countess Olga and another officer, who had joined them, were all chaffing gaily while they smoked their cigarettes, but Gritzko appeared to be aware of everything that was passing, for he suddenly bent over and whispered to Tamara:
"Madame, when you have been here long enough you will learn never to see what you do not wish." Then he turned back to the others, and laughed again.
What did he mean? she wondered. Were there many things then to which one must shut one's eyes?
She now caught part of the conversation that was going on.
"But why won't you come, Gritzko?" Countess Olga was saying. "It will be most amusing—and the prizes are lovely, Tatiane, who has seen them, says."
"I?—to be glued to a bridge table for three solid evenings. Mon Dieu!" the Prince cried. "Having to take what partner falls to one's lot! No choice! My heavens! nothing would drag me. Whatever game I play in life, I will select my lady myself."
"You are tiresome!" Countess Olga said. When they got to the station the Princess's coupé was waiting, as well as the Gléboff sleigh.
"Good-bye, and a thousand thanks for taking me," Tamara said, and they waved as Countess Olga drove off. And then the Prince handed her into the coupé and asked her if she would drop him on the way.
For some time after they were settled under the furs and rushing along, he seemed very silent, and when Tamara ventured a few remarks he answered mechanically. At last after a while:
"You are going to this bridge tournament at the Varishkine's, I suppose?" he suddenly said. "It ought to be just your affair."
"Why my affair?" Tamara asked, annoyed. "I hate bridge."
"So you do. I forgot. But Tantine will take you, all the same. Perhaps, if nothing more amusing turns up, I will drop in one night and see; but—wheugh!" and he stretched himself and spread out his hands—"I have been impossibly sage for over a fortnight. I believe I must soon break out."
"What does that mean, Prince—to 'break out'?"
"It means to throw off civilized things and be as mad as one is inclined," and he smiled mockingly while some queer, restless spirit dwelt in his eyes. "I always break out when things make me think, and just now—in the train—when you looked at the sad country——"
"That made you think?" said Tamara, surprised.
"Well—never mind, good little angel. And now good-bye," and he kissed her hand lightly and jumped out; they had arrived at his house.
Tamara drove on to the Serguiefskaia with a great desire to see him again in her heart.
* * * * *
And so the days passed and the hours flew. Tamara had been in Russia almost three weeks; and since the blessing of the waters the time had been taken up with a continual round of small entertainments. The Court mourning prevented as yet any great balls; but there were receptions, and "bridges" and dinners, and night after night they saw the same people, and Tamara got to know them fairly well. But after the excursion to Tsarsköi-Sélo for several days she did not see the Prince. His military duties took up his whole time, her godmother said. And when at last he did come it was among a crowd, and there was no possible chance of speech.
"This bores me," he announced when he found the room full of people, and he left in ten minutes, and they did not see him again for a week, when they met him at a dinner at the English Embassy.
Then he seemed cool and respectful and almost commonplace, and Tamara felt none of the satisfaction she should have done from this changed order of things.
At the bridge tournament he made no appearance whatever.
"Why do we see Prince Milaslávski so seldom when we go out, Marraine?" she asked her godmother one day. "I thought all these people were his intimate friends!"
"So they are, dear; but Gritzko is an odd creature," the Princess said. "He asked me once if I thought he was an imbécile or a performing monkey, when I reproached him for not being at the balls. He only goes out when he is so disposed. If some one person amuses him, or if he suddenly wants to see us all. It is merely by fits and starts—always from the point of view of if he feels inclined, never from the observance of any social law, or from obligation."
"Why on earth do you put up with such manners?" Tamara exclaimed with irritation.
"I do not know. We might not in any one else, but Gritzko is a privileged person," the Princess said. "You can't imagine, of course, dear, because you do not know him well enough, but he has ways and façons of coaxing. He will do the most outrageous things, and make me very angry, and then he will come and put his head in my lap like a child, and kiss my hands, and call me 'Tantine,' and, old woman as I am, I cannot resist him. And if one is unhappy or ill, no one can be more tender and devoted." Then she added dreamily:—"While as a lover I should think he must be quite divine."
Tamara took another cup of tea and looked into the fire. She was ashamed to show how this conversation interested her.
"Tatiane Shébanoff is madly in love with him, poor thing, and I do not believe he has ever given her any real encouragement," the Princess continued. "I have seen him come to a ball, and when all the young women are longing for him to ask them to dance, he will go off with me, or old Countess Nivenska, and sit talking half the night, apparently unaware of any one else's presence."
"It seems he must be the most exasperating, tiresome person one has ever heard of, Marraine," Tamara exclaimed. "He rides over you all, and you cannot even be angry, and continually forgive him."
"But then he has his serious side," the Princess went on, eager to defend her favorite. "He is now probably studying some deep military problem all this time, and that is why we have not seen him,"—and then noticing the scornful pose of Tamara's head she laughed. "Don't be so contemptuous, dear child," she—said. "Perhaps you too will understand some day."