His Hour Part 14

"I think you are a strange band," she said. "You are extremely intellectual, you are brilliant, and yet in five minutes all intelligence can fade out of your faces, and all interest from your talks, and you fly to bridge."

"It is because we are primitive and unspoilt; this is our new toy, and we must play with it; the excitement will wane, and a fresh one come----" he paused and then went on in another tone--

"You in England have many outlets for your supervitality--you cannot judge of other nations who have not. You had a magnificent system of government. It took you about eight hundred years to build up, and it was the admiration of the world--and now you are allowing your Socialists and ignorant plebeian place hunters to pull it all to pieces and throw it away. That is more foolish surely, than even to go crazy over bridge!"

Tamara sighed.

"Have you ever been in England, Prince?" she asked.

He sat down on the sofa beside her.

"No--but one day I shall go, Paris is as far as I have got on the road as yet."

"You would think us all very dull, I expect, and calculating and restrained," Tamara said softly. "You might like the hunting, but somehow I do not see you in the picture there--"

He got up and moved restlessly to the mantlepiece, where he leaned, while he stirred his tea absently. There was almost an air of bravado in the insouciant tone of his next remark--

"Do you know, I did a dreadful thing," he said. "And it has grieved me terribly, and I must have your sympathy. I hurt my Arab horse. You remember him, Suliman, at the Sphinx?"

"Yes," said Tamara.

"I had a little party to some of my friends, and we were rather gay--not a party you would have approved of, but one which pleased us all the same--and they dared me to ride Suliman from the stables to the big saloon."

"And I suppose you did?" Tamara's voice was full of contempt.

He noticed the tone, and went on defiantly:

"Of course; that was easy; only the devil of a carpet made him trip at the bottom again, and he has strained two of his beautiful feet. But you should have seen him!" he went on proudly. "As dainty as the finest gentleman in and out the chairs, and his great success was putting his forelegs on the fender seat!"

"How you have missed your metier!" Tamara said, and she leant back in her sofa and surveyed him as he stood, a graceful tall figure in his blue long coat. "Think of the triumph you would have in a Hippodrome!"

He straightened himself suddenly, his great eyes flashed, and over his face came a fierceness she had not guessed.

"I thought you had melted a little--here in our snow, but I see it is the mummy there all the same," he said.

Tamara laughed. For the first time it was she who held the reins.

"Even to the wrappings,"--and she gently kicked out the soft gray folds of her skirt.

He took a step nearer her, and then he stood still, and while the fierceness remained in his face, his eyes were full of pain.

She glanced up at him, and over her came almost a sense of indignation that he should so unworthily pa.s.s his time.

"How you waste your life!" she said. "Oh! think to be a man, and free, and a great landowner. To have thousands of peasants dependent upon one's frown. To have the opportunity of lifting them into something useful and good. And to spend one's hours and find one's pleasure in such things as this! Riding one's favorite horse at the risk of its and one's own neck, up and down the stairs. Ah! I congratulate you, Prince!"

He drew himself up again, as if she had hit him, and the pain in his eyes turned to flame.

"I allow no one to criticize my conduct," he said. "If it amused me to ride a bear into this room and let it eat you up, I would not hesitate."

"I do not doubt it," and Tamara laughed scornfully. "It would be in a piece with all the rest."

He raised his head with an angry toss, and then they looked at each other like two fighting cats, when fortunately the door opened, and the Princess came in.

In a moment he had laughed, and resumed his habitually insouciant mien.

"Madame has been reading me a lecture," he said. "She thinks I am wasted in the Emperor's escort, and a circus is my place."

Tamara did not speak.

"Why do you seem always to quarrel so, Gritzko?" the Princess said, plaintively. "It really quite upsets me, dear boy."

"You must not worry, Tantine," and he kissed the Princess' hand. "We don't quarrel; we are the best of friends; only we tell one another home truths. I came this afternoon to ask you if you will come to Milaslav next week. I think Madame ought to see Moscow, and we might make an excursion from there just for a night," and he looked at Tamara with a lifting of the brows.

"Then, Tantine, she could see how I cow my peasants with a knout, and grind them to starvation. It would be an interesting picture for her to take back to England."

"I should enjoy all that immensely, of course," Tamara said, pleasantly. "Many thanks, Prince."

"I shall be so honored," and he bowed politely; then, turning to the Princess: "You will settle it, won't you, Tantine?"

"I will look at our engagements, dear boy. We will try to arrange it. I can tell you at the ballet," and the Princess smiled encouragingly up at him. "My G.o.dchild has not seen our national dancing yet, so we go to-night with Prince Miklefski and Valonne."

"Then it is au revoir," he said, and kissing their hands he left them.

When the door was shut and they were alone.

"Tamara, what had you said to Gritzko to move him so?" the Princess asked. "I, who know every line of his face, tell you I have not seen him so moved since his mother's death."

So Tamara told her, describing the scene.

"My dear, you touched him in a tender spot," her G.o.dmother said. "His mother was a saint almost to those people at Milaslav; they worshipped her. She was very beautiful and very sweet, and after her husband's death she spent nearly all her life there. She started schools to teach the peasants useful things, and she encouraged them and cared for their health; and her great wish was that Gritzko should carry out her schemes. She was no advanced Liberal, the late Princess, but she had such a tender heart, she longed to bring happiness to those in her keeping, and teach them to find happiness themselves."

"And he has let it all slide, I suppose," Tamara said.

"Well, not exactly that," and the Princess sighed deeply; "but I dare say these over gay companions of his do not leave him much time for the arrangement such things require. Ah! if you knew, Tamara," she went on, "how fond I am of that boy, and how I feel the great and n.o.ble parts of his character are running to waste, you would understand my grief."

"You are so kind, dear Marraine," Tamara said. "But surely he must be very weak."

"No, he is not weak; it is a dare-devil wild strain in him that seems as if it must out. He has a will of iron, and never breaks his word; only to get him to be serious, or give his word, is as yet an unaccomplished task. I sometimes think if a great love could come into his life it would save him--his whole soul could wake to that."

Tamara looked down and clasped her hands.

"But it does not seem likely to happen, does it, Marraine?"

The Princess sighed again.

"I would like him to love you, dear child," she said; and then as Tamara did not answer she went on softly almost to herself: "My brother Alexis was just such another as Gritzko. That season he spent with me in London, when your mother and I were young, he played all sorts of wild pranks. We three were always together. He was killed in a duel after, you know. It was all very sad."

Tamara stroked her G.o.dmother's hand.