Tamara sighed.
"Have you ever been in England, Prince?" she asked.
He sat down on the sofa beside her.
"No--but one day I shall go, Paris is as far as I have got on the road
as yet."
"You would think us all very dull, I expect, and calculating and
restrained," Tamara said softly. "You might like the hunting, but
somehow I do not see you in the picture there--"
He got up and moved restlessly to the mantlepiece, where he leaned,
while he stirred his tea absently. There was almost an air of bravado
in the insouciant tone of his next remark-"Do you know, I did a dreadful thing," he said. "And it has grieved me
terribly, and I must have your sympathy. I hurt my Arab horse. You
remember him, Suliman, at the Sphinx?"
"Yes," said Tamara.
"I had a little party to some of my friends, and we were rather gay--
not a party you would have approved of, but one which pleased us all
the same--and they dared me to ride Suliman from the stables to the big
saloon."
"And I suppose you did?" Tamara's voice was full of contempt.
He noticed the tone, and went on defiantly: "Of course; that was easy; only the devil of a carpet made him trip at
the bottom again, and he has strained two of his beautiful feet. But
you should have seen him!" he went on proudly. "As dainty as the finest
gentleman in and out the chairs, and his great success was putting his
forelegs on the fender seat!"
"How you have missed your metiér!" Tamara said, and she leant back in
her sofa and surveyed him as he stood, a graceful tall figure in his
blue long coat. "Think of the triumph you would have in a Hippodrome!"
He straightened himself suddenly, his great eyes flashed, and over his
face came a fierceness she had not guessed.
"I thought you had melted a little--here in our snow, but I see it is
the mummy there all the same," he said.
Tamara laughed. For the first time it was she who held the reins.
"Even to the wrappings,"--and she gently kicked out the soft gray folds
of her skirt.
He took a step nearer her, and then he stood still, and while the
fierceness remained in his face, his eyes were full of pain.
She glanced up at him, and over her came almost a sense of indignation
that he should so unworthily pass his time.