Part 4 (2/2)
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.--Hus.h.!.+ 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 s.h.i.+p'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.
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