His Hour Part 4

"Last night?" he said, while he forcibly drew her hand within his arm and began walking toward the group of her friends. "Last night you were afraid some should see me from the hotel, and to-night you dare me. Do it once more and I will kiss your lips!"

Tamara went dead white; she felt as if the ground were sinking beneath her feet; her knees trembled. In all her smooth, conventionally ordered life she had never experienced such a strong emotion.

The Prince glanced at her, and the fierceness went out of his eyes. He bowed gravely with the most courtly homage, and left her standing by Millicent's side.

Then Tamara remembered she was a lady, and that tenue was expected of her; so she turned to her friend gaily and said how she was enjoying the ball; but her fine nostrils quivered at intervals for the rest of the night.

"Thank G.o.d!" she said to herself, when a few hours later she got into bed--"Thank G.o.d! we are going tomorrow. I shall never see him again, and no one shall ever know."

CHAPTER IV

Next day they started, escorted to the station by a troup of gushing friends. Their compartment was a bower of flowers, and as each moment went by Tamara's equanimity was restored by the thought that she would soon be out of the land of her disgrace.

It is a tiresome journey to Alexandria--dusty and glaring and not of great interest. They hurried on board the ship when they arrived, without even glancing at their fellow pa.s.sengers following in the gangway. Neither woman was a perfect sailor and both were quite overcome with fatigue. It promised to be a disagreeable night, too, so they retired at once to their cabins, and were soon asleep.

The next day, which was Sunday, the wind blew, but by the afternoon calmed down again, and Tamara decided to dress and go on deck.

"Mrs. Hardcastle went up some hours ago; she was ready for luncheon, ma'am," her maid told her.

"She left a message for you to join her when you woke."

The ship was the usual sort of ship that goes from Alexandria to Trieste, and the two English ladies had secured places for their chairs in the most protected spot. Tamara rather looked forward to being able to sit there in the moonlight and enjoy the Mediterranean.

Her maid preceded her with her rug and cushion and book, and it was not until she was quite settled that she took cognizance of an empty chair at her other side.

"You lazy child!" Millicent Hardcastle said. "To sleep all day like this! It has been quite beautiful since luncheon, and I have had a most agreeable time. That extremely polite nice young Russian Prince we met at the Khedive's ball is here, dear; indeed, that is his chair next you. He is with Stephen Strong. We have been talking for hours."

Tamara felt suddenly almost cold.

"I never saw him in the train or coming on board," she said, with almost a gasp.

"Nor did I, and yet he must have been just behind us. Our places at meals are next him, too. So fortunate he was introduced, because one could not talk to a strange man, even on a boat. I never can understand those people who pick up acquaintances promiscuously; can you, dear?"

"No," said Tamara, feebly.

She was pondering what to do. She could not decline to know the Prince without making some explanation to Millicent. She also could not flatter him so much. She must just be icily cold, and if he should be further impertinent she could remain in her cabin.

But what an annoying contretemps! And she had thought she should never see him again!--and here until Wednesday afternoon, she would be constantly reminded of the most disgraceful incident in her career. All brought upon herself, too, by her own action in having lapsed from the rigid rules in which Aunt Clara had brought her up.

If she had not answered him at the Sphinx--he could not have--but she refused to dwell upon the shame of this recollection.

She had quite half an hour to grow calm before the cause of her unrest came even into sight, and when he did, it was to walk past in the company of their old friend, Stephen Strong.

The Prince raised his cap gravely, and Tamara comforted herself by noticing again how badly his clothes fitted him! How unsuitable, and even ridiculous, they were to English eyes--That gave her pleasure!

Also she must have a little fun with Millicent.

"Has it struck you, Millie, the Prince is the same young man we saw in the pyjamas on the veranda? I am surprised at your speaking to such a person, even if he has been introduced!"

Mrs. Hardcastle raised an aggrieved head.

"Really, Tamara," she said, "I had altogether forgotten that unpleasant incident. I wish you had not reminded me of it. He is a most respectful, modest, una.s.suming young man. I am sure he would be dreadfully uncomfortable if he were aware we had seen him so."

"I think he looked better like that than he does now," Tamara rejoined, spitefully. "Did you ever see such clothes?"

Mrs. Hardcastle whisked right round in her chair and stared at her friend. She was shocked, in the first place, that Tamara should speak so lightly of a breach of decorum; and, secondly, she was astonished at another aspect of the case.

"I thought you never saw him at all that morning!" she exclaimed.

Tamara was nettled.

"Your description was so vivid; besides, I looked back!"

"You _looked back!_ Tamara! after I had told you he wasn't dressed! My dear, how could you?"

"Well, I did.--Hush! he is coming toward us," and Tamara hurriedly opened a book and looked down.

"At last Mrs. Loraine has arrived on deck," she heard Millicent say; and then, for convention's sake she was obliged to glance up and bow coldly.

The young man did not seem the least impressed; he sat down and pulled his rug round his knees and gazed out at the sea. The sun had set, and the moon would soon rise in all her full glory.

There was hardly twilight and the ship's electric lights were already being lit. The old Englishman, Stephen Strong, greeted her and took the chair at Mrs. Hardcastle's other side. That lady was in one of her chatty moods, when each nicely expressed sentence fell from her lips directly after the other--all so pleasant and easy to understand. No one ever felt with Millicent he need use an atom of brain. These are the women men like.

Tamara pretended to read her book, but she was conscious of the near proximity of the Prince. Nothing so magnetic in the way of a personality had ever crossed her path as yet.

He sat as still as a statue gazing at the sea. An uncontrollable desire to look at him shook Tamara, but she dominated it. The discomfort at last grew so great that she almost trembled.

Then he spoke:

"Have you cat's eyes?" he asked.

Now, when there was a legitimate chance to look at him, she found her orbs glued to her book.

"Of course not!" she said, icily.

"Then of what use to pretend you are reading in this gloom? The miserable lantern is not good for a gleam."

Tamara was silent. She even turned a page. She would be irritating, too!

"That ball was a sight," he continued. "Did you see the harem ladies peeping from their cage? They looked fat and ugly enough to be wisely kept there. What a lot of fools they must have thought us, cavorting for their amus.e.m.e.nt."

"Poor women!" said Tamara. Her voice was the primmest thing in voices she had ever heard.

"Why poor women?" he asked. "They have all the pleasures of the body, and no anxieties; nothing but the little excitement of trying now and then to poison their rivals! It is the poor Khedive!--Think of his having to wade through all that fat ma.s.s to find one pretty one!"

The tone of this conversation displeased Tamara. She did not wish to enter into the ethics of the harem. She wished he would be silent again, only that deep voice of his was so pleasant! His English was wonderful, too, with hardly the least accent; and when she did allow herself to look at him she could not help admiring the way his hair grew, back from a forehead purely Greek. His nose was short and rather square, while those too beautifully chiseled lips of his had an expression of extraordinary charm. His whole personality breathed attraction, every human being who approached him was conscious of it.