Stephen Strong lit a cigar and puffed for a few seconds, then he settled himself with the air of a person beginning a narrative.
"He came into his vast fortune rather too young, and lived rather fiercely. His mother was a Basmanoff; that means a kind of Croesus in Russia. He is a great favorite with the powers that be, and is in the Cossacks of the Escort. Something in their wild freedom appealed to him more than any other corps. He is a Cossack himself on the mother"s side, and the blood is all rather wild, you know."
Tamara looked as she felt--interested.
"They tell the most tremendous stories about him," the old man went on, "hugely exaggerated, of course; but the fact remains, he is a fascinating, restless, dauntless character."
"What sort of stories?" asked Tamara, timidly.
"Not all fit for your ears, gentle lady," laughed Stephen Strong.
"Sheer devilment, mostly. It was the amus.e.m.e.nt in the beginning to dare him to anything, the maddest feats. He ran off with a nun once, it is said, for a bet, and deposited her in the house of the man she had loved before her vows were taken. That was in Poland. Then he has orgies sometimes at his country place, when every one is mad for three days on end. It causes terrible scandal. Then he comes back like a lamb, and purrs to all the old ladies. They say he obeys neither G.o.d nor the Devil--only the Emperor on this earth."
"How dreadful!" force of habit made Tamara say, while her thoughts unconsciously ran into interested fascination.
"He is absolutely fearless, and as cool as an Englishman, and there are not any mean things told about him, though," Steven Strong continued, "and indeed sometimes he lives the simplest country life with his horses and dogs, and his own people worship him, I believe. But there is no wildest prank he is incapable of if his blood is up."
"I think he looks like it," said Tamara. "Is it because he habitually wears uniform that his ordinary clothes fit so badly? To our eyes he seems dressed like some commis voyageur."
"Of course," said Stephen Strong. "And even in Paris I don"t suppose you would approve of him in that respect, but if you could see him in Petersburg, then I believe you would be like all the rest."
"All which rest?" asked Tamara.
"Women. They simply adore him. Bohemians, great ladies, actresses, dancers, and----"
He was just going to mention those of another world, when he felt Tamara would hardly understand him, so he stopped short.
Something in her rose up in arms.
"It shows how foolish they are," she said.
Stephen Strong glanced at her sideways, and if she could have read his thoughts they were:
"This sweet Englishwoman is under Gritzko"s spell already, and how she is battling against it! She won"t have a chance, though, if he makes up his mind to win."
But Tamara, for all her gentle features, was no weakling; only her life had been a long hibernation; and now the spring had come, and soon the time of the finding of honey and a new life.
"What can he be talking about to my friend, Mr. Strong?" she asked, as the two pa.s.sed again. "Millicent is one of the last women he can have anything in common with; she would simply die of horror if she heard any of these stories--and he can"t be interested in a word she says."
"He always does the unexpected," and Stephen Strong laughed as he said it. He himself was amused at this ill-matched pair.
"Mrs. Hardcastle is agreeable to look at, too," he continued.
Tamara smiled scornfully.
"That is the lowest view to take. One should be above material appearance."
"Charming lady!" said Stephen Strong. "Yes, indeed you do not know the world."
Tamara was not angry. She looked at him and smiled, showing her beautiful teeth.
"Of course you think me a goose," she said, "but I warned you I was one. Tell me, shall I ever grow out of it--tell me, you who know?"
"If the teacher is young and handsome enough to make your heart beat,"
said her old companion. And then Millicent and the Prince joined them.
Mrs. Hardcastle"s round blue eyes were flashing brightly, and her fresh face was aglow with exercise and enjoyment.
"Tamara dear, you are too incorrigibly lazy. Why do you sit here instead of taking exercise? and you have no idea of the interesting things the Prince has been telling me. All about a Russian poet called--oh, I can"t p.r.o.nounce the name, but who wrote of a devil--not exactly Faust, you know, though something like it."
Tamara noticed that amused, whimsical, mocking gleam in the Cossack"s great eyes, but Millicent went gaily on, unconscious of anything but herself.
"I mean those mythical, strange sort of devils who come to earth, you know, and--and--make love to ladies--a sort of Satan like in Marie Corelli"s lovely book. You remember, Tamara, the one you were so funny about, laughing when you read it."
"You mean "The Demon" of Lermontoff, probably, Millicent, don"t you?"
Tamara said. "A friend of my mother"s translated it into English, and I have known it since I was a child. I think it must be very fine in the original," and she looked at the Prince.
In one moment his face became serious and sympathetic.
"You know our great poet"s work, then?" he said, surprised. "One would not have thought it!"
Then again Tamara"s anger rose. There was always the insinuation in his remarks, seemingly unconscious, and therefore the more irritating, that she was a commonplace fool.
"Her name--the heroine"s--is the same as my own," she said, gravely; but there was a challenge in her eyes.
"Tamara!" he said. "Well--it could be--a devil might come your way, but you would kneel and pray, and eat bonbons, and not listen to him."
"It would depend upon the devil," she said.
"Those who live the longest will see the most," and the Prince put back his head and laughed with real enjoyment at his thoughts, just as he had done when the two goats had b.u.t.ted at one another in the road.
Tamara felt her cheeks blaze with rage, but she would not enter the lists, in spite of the late challenge in her eyes.
Mr. Strong had vacated Millicent"s chair and taken his own. The party soon settled into their legitimate places, and Tamara again took up her book.
"No, don"t read," the Prince said. "You get angry at once with me when we talk, and the red comes into your cheeks, and I like it."
Exasperation was almost uncontrollable in Tamara. She remained silent, only the little ear next the Prince burned scarlet.
"Some day you will come to Russia," he said, "and then you will learn many things."
"I have no desire to go there," said Tamara, lying frankly, as it had always been her great wish, and indeed her G.o.dmother, who never forgot her, had often begged her to visit that northern clime; but Russia!--as well have suggested the moon at Underwood.
"It would freeze you, perhaps, or burn you--who can tell?" the Prince said. "One would see when you got there. I have an old lady, a dear friend, with white hair and a mole on her cheek--someone who sees straight. She would be good for your education."
Tamara thought it would be wiser not to show any further annoyance, so she said lightly:
"Yes, I am only sixteen, and have never left the schoolroom; it would be delightful to be taught how to live."
He turned and smiled at her.