His Hour

For a second she hesitated. Her first impulse was to scornfully say no,

but she quickly realized that would be undignified and absurd; so she

said yes, coldly, and let him place his arm about her. The band was

playing a particularly sensuous valse, which drove all young people mad

that year, and--if the Count had danced well--this man's movements were

heaven. Tamara did not speak a word. She purposely did not look at him,

but drooped her proud head so that the flashing diamonds of her tiara

were all he could have seen of her.

He put no special meaning into the way he held her; he just danced

divinely; but there was something in the creature himself of a

perfectly annoying attractiveness--or so it seemed to Tamara.

They at last paused for a moment, and then he spoke. He made not the

slightest allusion to the Sphinx incident. He spoke gravely of Cairo,

and the polo, and the races, and said that his Grand Duke had arrived

that day. He was not on his staff, but was indeed travelling in Egypt

for his own amusement and delectation, he said.

He had been there since November, it seemed, and had been up the Nile,

and had fortunately been able to secure a little bungalow at Mena,

where he could spend some hours of peace.

Then Tamara laughed. She remembered Millicent Hardcastle's

consternation over those unfortunate pyjamas. She wondered if Millicent

would realize that she--Tamara--was dancing with their wearer now! When

she laughed he put his arm around her once more and began dancing. This

time he held her rather closely, and suddenly as she laughed again to

herself provokingly, he clasped her tight.

"If you laugh like that I will kiss you--here in the room," he said.

Tamara stopped dead short. She blazed with anger.

"How dare you be so impertinent?" she said.

They were up in a corner; everyone's back was turned to them happily,

for in one second he had bent and kissed her neck. It was done with

such incredible swiftness and audacity that even had they been observed

it must only have looked as though he bent to pick up something she had

dropped. But the kiss burned into Tamara's flesh.

She could hardly keep the tears of outraged pride from her eyes.

"How dare you! How dare you!" she hissed. "Truly you are making me

ashamed of having let you speak to me last night!"

"Last night?" he said, while he forcibly drew her hand within his arm

and began walking toward the group of her friends. "Last night you were

afraid some should see me from the hotel, and to-night you dare me. Do

it once more and I will kiss your lips!"