His Hour
Page 56"Why my affair?" Tamara asked, annoyed. "I hate bridge."
"So you do. I forgot. But Tantine will take you, all the same. Perhaps,
if nothing more amusing turns up, I will drop in one night and see;
but--wheugh!" and he stretched himself and spread out his hands--"I
have been impossibly sage for over a fortnight. I believe I must soon
break out."
"What does that mean, Prince--to 'break out'?"
"It means to throw off civilized things and be as mad as one is
inclined," and he smiled mockingly while some queer, restless spirit
dwelt in his eyes. "I always break out when things make me think, and
just now--in the train--when you looked at the sad country----"
"Well--never mind, good little angel. And now good-bye," and he kissed
her hand lightly and jumped out; they had arrived at his house.
Tamara drove on to the Serguiefskaia with a great desire to see him
again in her heart.
* * * * * And so the days passed and the hours flew. Tamara had been in Russia
almost three weeks; and since the blessing of the waters the time had
been taken up with a continual round of small entertainments. The Court
mourning prevented as yet any great balls; but there were receptions,
and "bridges" and dinners, and night after night they saw the same
people, and Tamara got to know them fairly well. But after the
Prince. His military duties took up his whole time, her godmother said.
And when at last he did come it was among a crowd, and there was no
possible chance of speech.
"This bores me," he announced when he found the room full of people,
and he left in ten minutes, and they did not see him again for a week,
when they met him at a dinner at the English Embassy.
Then he seemed cool and respectful and almost commonplace, and Tamara
felt none of the satisfaction she should have done from this changed
order of things.
At the bridge tournament he made no appearance whatever.
she asked her godmother one day. "I thought all these people were his
intimate friends!"
"So they are, dear; but Gritzko is an odd creature," the Princess said.
"He asked me once if I thought he was an imbécile or a performing
monkey, when I reproached him for not being at the balls. He only goes
out when he is so disposed. If some one person amuses him, or if he
suddenly wants to see us all. It is merely by fits and starts--always
from the point of view of if he feels inclined, never from the
observance of any social law, or from obligation."