"No, I am foolish," Tamara answered. "Now you who know the world must
come and talk and teach me its meaning."
He was rather a wonderful old man, Stephen Strong, purely English to
look at, and purely cosmopolitan in habits and life. He had been in the
diplomatic service years ago, and had been in Egypt in the gorgeous
Ismail time; then a fortune came his way, and he traveled the earth
over. There were years spent in Vienna and Petersburg and Paris, and
always the early winter back in the land of the Sphinx.
"The world," he said, as he arranged himself in the chair, "is an
extremely pleasant place if one takes it as it is, and does not quarrel
with it. One must not be intolerant, and one must not be hypercritical.
See it all and make allowances for the weakness of the human beings who
inhabit it."
"Yes," said Tamara, "I know you are right; but so many of us belong to
a tribe who think their point of view the only one. I do, for instance;
that is why I say I am foolish."
The walkers passed again.
"There is a type for you to study," Stephen Strong said. "Prince
Milaslávski. I have known him for many years, since he was a child
almost; he is about twenty-nine or thirty now, and really a rather
interesting personality."
"Yes," said Tamara, honestly, "I feel that. Tell me about him?"
Stephen Strong lit a cigar and puffed for a few seconds, then he
settled himself with the air of a person beginning a narrative.
"He came into his vast fortune rather too young, and lived rather
fiercely. His mother was a Basmanoff; that means a kind of Croesus in
Russia. He is a great favorite with the powers that be, and is in the
Cossacks of the Escort. Something in their wild freedom appealed to him
more than any other corps. He is a Cossack himself on the mother's side,
and the blood is all rather wild, you know."
Tamara looked as she felt--interested.
"They tell the most tremendous stories about him," the old man went on,
"hugely exaggerated, of course; but the fact remains, he is a
fascinating, restless, dauntless character."
"What sort of stories?" asked Tamara, timidly.
"Not all fit for your ears, gentle lady," laughed Stephen Strong.
"Sheer devilment, mostly. It was the amusement in the beginning to dare
him to anything, the maddest feats. He ran off with a nun once, it is
said, for a bet, and deposited her in the house of the man she had
loved before her vows were taken. That was in Poland. Then he has
orgies sometimes at his country place, when every one is mad for three
days on end. It causes terrible scandal. Then he comes back like a
lamb, and purrs to all the old ladies. They say he obeys neither God
nor the Devil--only the Emperor on this earth."