His Hour

And Tamara went on to her own, trembling with excitement.

This was passion truly, but what if some love lurked underneath?--and

when she reached her great white bed she fell upon her knees, and

burying her face in her hands she prayed to God.

* * * * * Now of what use to write of the days that followed--the stiff

restrained days--or of the arrival of Tom Underdown and his sister, and

Millicent Hardcastle--or of the splendid Russian ceremonies in the

church or the quieter ones at the Embassy. All that it concerns us to

know is that Gritzko and Tamara were at last alone on this their

wedding night. Alone with all their future before them. Both their

faces had been grave and solemn through all the vows and prayers, but

afterward his had shone with a wild triumph. And as they had driven to

his house on the Fontonka he had held Tamara's hand but had not spoken.

It was a strange eventful moment when he led her up the great stairs

between the rows of bowing servants--up into the salons all decorated

with flowers. Then, still never speaking, he opened the ballroom doors,

and when they had walked its great length and came to the rooms

beyond, he merely said: "These you must have done by that man in Paris--or how you please," as

though the matter were aloof, and did not interest him. And then

instead of turning into his own sitting-room, he opened a door on the

right, which Tamara did not know, and they entered what had been his

mother's bedroom. It was warmed and lit, but it wore that strange air

of gloom and melancholy which untenanted rooms, consecrated to the

memory of the dead, always have, in spite of blue satin and bright

gilding.

"Tamara," he said, and he took her hand, "these were my mother's rooms.

I loved her very much, and I always thought I would never let any

woman--even my wife--enter them. I have left them just as she used them

last. But now I know that is not what she would have wished."

His deep voice trembled a little with a note of feeling in it which was

new, and which touched Tamara's innermost being.

"I want you to see them now with me, and then while we are in the South

all these things shall be taken away, and they shall be left bare and

white for you to arrange them when we come back, just as you would

like. I want my mother's blessing to rest on us--which it will do--"