His Hour Part 26

"Well, then, since I must stay here I shall be disagreeable and not say a word."

And she sat down primly and folded her hands.

He lit a cigarette, and she noticed his hand trembled a little, but his voice was quite steady, and in fact low as he said:

"I tell you frankly, if you go on treating me as you have done today, whatever happens is on your head."

"Do you mean to strangle me then?--or have me torn up by dogs?" and Tamara smiled provokingly. With all the others in the room, and almost within earshot, she felt perfectly safe.

She had suffered so much, it seemed good to oppose him a little, when it could not entail a duel with some unoffending man!

"I do not know yet what I shall be impelled to do, only I warn you, if you tease me, you will pay the price." And he puffed a cloud of smoke.

"He can do nothing tonight," Tamara thought, "and tomorrow we are going back to Moscow, and then I am returning home." A spirit of devilment was in her. Nearly always it had been he who regulated things, and now it was her turn. She had been so very unhappy, and had only the outlook of dullness and regret. Tonight she would retaliate, she would do as she felt inclined.

So she leaned back in her chair and smiled, making a tantalizing moue at him, while she said, mockingly:

"Aren't you a barbarian, Prince! Only the days of Ivan the Terrible are over, thank goodness!"

He took a chair and sat down quietly, but the tone of his voice should have warned her as he said:

"You are counting upon the unknown."

She peeped at him now through half-closed alluring lids, and she noticed he was very pale.

In her quiet, well-ordered life she had never come in contact with real pa.s.sion. She had not the faintest idea of the vast depths she was stirring. All she knew was she loved him very much, and the whole thing galled her pride horribly. It seemed a satisfaction, a salve to her wounded vanity, to be able to make him feel, to punish him a little for all her pain.

"Think! This time next week. I shall be safe in peaceful England, where we have not to combat the unknown."

"No?"

"No. Marraine and I have settled everything. I take the Wednesday's Nord Express after we get back to Petersburg."

"And tomorrow is Friday, and there are yet five days. Well, we must contrive to show you some more scenes of our uncivilized country, and perhaps after all you won't go."

Tamara laughed with gay scorn. She put out her little foot and tapped the edge of the great stove.

"For once I shall do as I please, Prince. I shall not ask your leave!"

His eyes seemed to gleam, and he lay perfectly still in his chair like some panther watching its prey. Tamara's blood was up. She would not be dominated! She continued mocking and defying him until she drove him gradually mad.

But on one thing she had counted rightly, he could do nothing with them all in the room.

First one and then another left their game, and joined them for a few minutes, and then went back.

And so in this fashion the late afternoon pa.s.sed and they went up to dress.

No one was down in the great saloon when Tamara and the Princess descended for dinner, but as they entered, Stephen Strong and Valonne came in from the opposite door and joined them near the stove, and Tamara and Valonne talked, while the other two wandered to a distant couch.

"Have you ever been to any of these wonderful parties one hears have taken place, Count Valonne?" she asked.

Valonne smiled his enigmatic smile. "Yes," he said. "I have once or twice--perhaps you think this room shows traces of some rather violent amus.e.m.e.nts, and really on looking round, I believe it does!"

Tamara shivered slightly. She had the feeling known as a goose walking over her grave.

"It is as if wild animals played here--hardly human beings," she said.

"Look at that cabinet, and the sofa, and--and--that picture! One cannot help reflecting upon what caused those holes. One's imagination can conjure up extraordinary things."

"Not more extraordinary than the probable facts," and Valonne laughed as if at some astonishing recollection. "You have not yet seen our host's own rooms though, I expect?"

"Why?" asked Tamara. "But can they possibly be worse than this?"

"No, that is just it. He had them done up by one of your English firms, and they are beautifully comfortable and correct. His sitting-room is full of books, and a few good pictures, and leads into his bedroom and dressing-room; and as for the bathroom it is as perfect as any the best American plumber could invent!"

Valonne had spent years at Washington, and in England too, and spoke English almost as a native.

"He is the most remarkable contrast of wildness and civilization I have ever met."

"It always seems to me as though he were trying to crush something--to banish something in himself," said Tamara. "As though he did these wild things to forget."

"It is the limitless nature warring against an impossible bar. If he were an Englishman he would soar to be one of the greatest of your country, Madame," Valonne said. "You have not perhaps talked to him seriously; he is extraordinarily well read; and then on some point that we of the Occident have known as children, he will be completely ignorant, but he never bores one! Nothing he does makes one feel heavy like lead!"

Tamara looked so interested, Valonne went on.

"These servants down here absolutely idolize him; they have all been in the house since he or they were born. For them he can do no wrong. He has a gymnasium, and he keeps two or three of them to exercise him, and wrestle with him, and last year Basil, the second one, put his master's shoulder out of joint, and then tried to commit suicide with remorse.

You can't, until you have been here a long time, understand their strange natures. So easily moved to pa.s.sion, so fierce and barbaric, and yet so full of sentiment and fidelity. I firmly believe if he were to order them to set fire to us all in our beds tonight, they would do it without a word! He is their personal 'Little Father.' For them there is a trinity to worship and respect--the Emperor, G.o.d, and their Master."

Tamara felt extremely moved. A pa.s.sionate wild regret swept over her.

Oh! why might not fate let him love her really, so that they could be happy. How she would adore to soothe him, and be tender and gentle and obedient, and bring him peace!

But just at that moment, with an air of exasperating insouciant insolence, he came into the room and began chaffing with Valonne, and turning to her said something which set her wounded pride again all aflame, and burning with impotence and indignation she, as the strange guest, put her hand on his arm to go in to dinner.

Zacouska was partaken of, and then the serious repast began. Every one was in the highest spirits. Countess Olga and Lord Courtray looked as though they were getting on with giant strides. Jack had got to the whispering stage, which Tamara knew to be a serious one with him. The whole party became worked up to a point of extra gaiety. On her other hand sat Sonia's husband, Prince Solentzeff-Zasiekin. But Gritzko sparkled with brilliancy and seemed to lead the entire table.

There was something so extremely attractive about him in his character of host that Tamara felt she dared hardly look at him or she could not possibly keep up this cold reserve if she did!

So she turned and talked, and apparently listened, with scarcely a pause to her right-hand neighbor's endless dissertations upon Moscow, and while she answered interestedly, her thoughts grew more and more full of rebellion and unrest.

It was as if a needle had an independent will, and yet was being drawn by a magnet against itself. She had to use every bit of her force to keep her head turned to Prince Solentzeff-Zasiekin, and when Gritzko did address her, only to answer him in monosyllables, stiffly, but politely, as a stranger guest should.

By the end of dinner he was again wild with rage and exasperation.

When they got back to the great saloon, they found the end of it had been cleared and a semicircle of chairs arranged for them to sit in and watch some performance. It proved to be a troupe of Russian dancers and some Cossacks who made a remarkable display with swords, while musicians, in their national dress, accompanied the performance.

Tamara and Lord Courtray had seen this same sort of dancing in London when Russian troupes gave their "turns," but never executed with such wonderful fire and pa.s.sion as this they witnessed now. The feats were quite extraordinary, and one or two of the women were attractive-looking creatures.

Gritzko's att.i.tude toward them was that of the benevolent master to highly trained valued hounds. Indeed this feeling seemed to be mutual, the hounds adoring their master with blind devotion, as all his belongings did.