His Hour

When all had finished supper, they moved back into another great room.

"You must notice this, Tamara, it is very Russian," her godmother said.

It was an immense apartment with a great porcelain stove at one corner,

and panelled with wood, and it suggested to Tamara, for no sane reason,

something of an orthodox church! One end was bare, and the other

carpeted with great Persian rugs, had huge divans spread about; there

was an electric piano and an organ, and there were also crossed foils,

and masks, and everything for a fencing bout.

The Prince went to the piano and started a valse. Then he came up to

Tamara and asked her to dance.

There was no trace left of his respectful friendliness! His sleepy eyes

were blazing, he had never looked more oriental, or more savage, or

more intense.

It was almost with a thrill of fear that Tamara yielded herself to his

request. He clasped her so tightly she could hardly breathe, all she

knew was she seemed to be floating in the air, and to be crushed

against his breast.

"Prince, please, I am suffocating!" she cried at last.

Then he swung her off her feet, and stopped by an armchair, and Tamara

subsided into it, panting, not able to speak. And all across her

milk-white chest there were a row of red marks from the heavy silver

cartridges, which cross in two rows in the Cossack dress.

"I would like those brands of me to last forever," the Prince said.

Tamara lay back in the chair a prey to tumultuous emotions. She ought

to be disgusted she supposed, and of course she was--such an

uncivilized horrible thought! but at the same time every nerve was

tingling and her pulse was beating with the strange thrills she had

only lately begun to dream of.

"Tamara! By jove! What have you done to your neck?" Jack Courtray said,

as he came up.

And Tamara was glad she had a gauze scarf over her arm, which she

wrapped around carelessly as she said: "Nothing, Jack--let's dance!"

"What an awfully decent chap our host is, isn't he!" Lord Courtray

said, as they ambled along in their valse. "And jolly good-looking

too--for a foreigner. These Russians are men after my own heart!"

"Yes, he is good-looking," admitted Tamara. "If he weren't so wild; but

don't you think he has a frightfully savage expression, Jack?"

"If you are intending to play with him, old girl, take my advice, you

had better look out," and he laughed his merry laugh as they stopped

because the piano stopped.