"Why on earth do you put up with such manners?" Tamara exclaimed with
irritation.
"I do not know. We might not in any one else, but Gritzko is a
privileged person," the Princess said. "You can't imagine, of course,
dear, because you do not know him well enough, but he has ways and
façons of coaxing. He will do the most outrageous things, and make me
very angry, and then he will come and put his head in my lap like a
child, and kiss my hands, and call me 'Tantine,' and, old woman as I
am, I cannot resist him. And if one is unhappy or ill, no one can be
more tender and devoted." Then she added dreamily:--"While as a lover I
should think he must be quite divine."
Tamara took another cup of tea and looked into the fire. She was
ashamed to show how this conversation interested her.
"Tatiane Shébanoff is madly in love with him, poor thing, and I do not
believe he has ever given her any real encouragement," the Princess
continued. "I have seen him come to a ball, and when all the young
women are longing for him to ask them to dance, he will go off with me,
or old Countess Nivenska, and sit talking half the night, apparently
unaware of any one else's presence."
"It seems he must be the most exasperating, tiresome person one has
ever heard of, Marraine," Tamara exclaimed. "He rides over you all, and
you cannot even be angry, and continually forgive him."
"But then he has his serious side," the Princess went on, eager to
defend her favorite. "He is now probably studying some deep military
problem all this time, and that is why we have not seen him,"--and then
noticing the scornful pose of Tamara's head she laughed. "Don't be so
contemptuous, dear child," she--said. "Perhaps you too will understand
some day."
"That is not very likely," Tamara said.
But alas! for the Princess' optimistic surmises as to the Prince's
occupations, a rumor spread toward the end of the week of the maddest
orgie which had taken place at the Fontonka house. It sounded like a
phantasmagoria in which unclothed dancers, and wild beasts, and
unheard-of feats seemed to float about. And the Princess sighed as she
refuted the gossip it caused.
"Oh, my poor Gritzko! if he might only even for a while remain in a
state of grace," she said.