Part 17 (1/2)

And there sitting by Olga Gleboff, already perfectly at home, was Lord Courtray; and further down the Princess Ardacheff sat by Stephen Strong.

”Gritzko--we could not wait!” Countess Olga said.

Then both the Englishmen got up and greeted Tamara.

”Fancy seeing you here, Tamara! What a bit of luck!” Jack Courtray said.

CHAPTER XI

Jack Courtray was a thoroughly good all-around sportsman, and had an immense success with women as a rule. His methods were primitive and direct. When not hunting or shooting, he went straight to the point with a beautiful simplicity unhampered by sentiment, and then when wearied with one woman, moved on to the next.

He was a tremendously good fellow every man said. Just a natural animal creature, whom grooming and polis.h.i.+ng in the family for some hundred or so of years had made into a gentleman.

He was as ignorant as he could well be. To him the geography of the world meant different places for sport. India represented tigers and elephants. It had no towns or histories that mattered, it had jungles and forests. Africa said lions. Austria, chamois--and Russia, bears!

Women were either sisters, or old friends and jolly comrades--like Tamara. Or they came under the category of sport. A lesser sport, to be indulged in when the rarer beasts were not obtainable for his gun--but still sport!

He found himself in a delightful milieu. The prospect of certain bears in the near future--a dear old friend to frolic with in the immediate present, and the problematic joys of a possible affair to be indulged in meanwhile. No wonder he was in the best of spirits, and when Tamara, without _arriere pensee_, took the empty place at his side, he bent over her and filled her plate with the thinnest ham he had been able to cut, with all the apparent air of a devoted lover. And if she had looked up she would have seen that the Prince suddenly had begun to watch her with a fierceness in his eyes.

”This is a jolly place,” Jack Courtray said. He had just the faintest lisp, which sounded rather attractive, and Tamara, after the storms and emotions of the past few days, found a distinct pleasure and rest in his obviousness.

It is an ill wind which blows no one any good, for presently the Prince turned and devoted himself to Tatiane Shebanoff.

She was quite the prettiest of all this little clique, pet.i.te and fair and sweet. Divorced from a brute of a husband a year or so ago, and now married to an elderly Prince.

And she loved Gritzko with pa.s.sion, and while she was silent about it, her many friends told him so.

For his part he remained unconcerned, and sometimes troubled himself about her, and sometimes not.

And so the evening wore on, and apparently it had no distinct sign that it was to be one of the finger-posts of fate.

When all had finished supper, they moved back into another great room.

”You must notice this, Tamara, it is very Russian,” her G.o.dmother said.

It was an immense apartment with a great porcelain stove at one corner, and panelled with wood, and it suggested to Tamara, for no sane reason, something of an orthodox church! One end was bare, and the other carpeted with great Persian rugs, had huge divans spread about; there was an electric piano and an organ, and there were also crossed foils, and masks, and everything for a fencing bout.

The Prince went to the piano and started a valse. Then he came up to Tamara and asked her to dance.

There was no trace left of his respectful friendliness! His sleepy eyes were blazing, he had never looked more oriental, or more savage, or more intense.

It was almost with a thrill of fear that Tamara yielded herself to his request. He clasped her so tightly she could hardly breathe, all she knew was she seemed to be floating in the air, and to be crushed against his breast.

”Prince, please, I am suffocating!” she cried at last.

Then he swung her off her feet, and stopped by an armchair, and Tamara subsided into it, panting, not able to speak. And all across her milk-white chest there were a row of red marks from the heavy silver cartridges, which cross in two rows in the Cossack dress.

”I would like those brands of me to last forever,” the Prince said.