His Hour

"It will prepare you for what you are coming to at Milasláv," Gritzko

said. "A row of tent stretchers for everyone together in the hall!"

Tamara made no answer, she contrived to move on directly he spoke, and

her reply now was to the general company, as it had been all day.

If she had looked back then she would have seen a gleam in his eyes

which boded no peace. She thought she was doing everything for the

best, but each rebuff was adding fuel to that wild fire in his blood.

By the end of the day, after walks through the Treasury and museums,

and what not, and never having been able to speak to Tamara, his temper

was at boiling point. But he controlled it, and his face wore a mask,

which disarmed even the Princess' fears.

Their dinner was very gay, and the Russians asked Lord Courtray what

had impressed him most.

"I like the story of Ivan the Terrible putting his jolly old alpenstock

through the fellow's foot on the stairs when he came with the letter,"

Jack said. "Sensible sort of thing to do. Kept the messenger in place."

Meanwhile Tamara was conversing in a lower voice with Stephen Strong.

"The more you stay in this country, the more it fascinates you," he

said. "And you feel you have got back to some of the fierce primitive

passions of nature. Here, in Moscow, the whole earth must be stained

with wild orgies and blood, and yet they are full of poetry and

romance. Even Ivan the Terrible had his religious side, and every

creature of them believes in the saints and the priests. It is said the

impostor who posed as Ivan's son might have succeeded had he not been

too kind, he showed clemency to Shuisky and his enemies and did not

have them torn to pieces, so the people would not believe he could be

the Terrible's son! And they chased him to that window you remember we

saw in the old palace of the Kremlin and there he had to throw himself

out."

"It makes one wonder what can arise from a history of such horrible

crimes," Tamara said.

"You must not forget that the country is practically three hundred

years behind the times, though," Stephen Strong went on. "No doubt

quite as great horrors marked others if we look at them at an

equivalent stage of development. It is missing this point which makes

most strangers, and many foreign historians, so unjust to Russia and

her people. The national qualities are immeasurably great, but as a

civilized nation they are so very young."