His Hour

Meanwhile the Prince had left the room.

"Gritzko has gone to telephone for a Tzigane band," Princess Sonia

said. "And to the club and to the reception at Madame Sueboffs, and

soon we shall have enough people for a contre-danse--and some real

fun."

That it was almost three o'clock in the morning never seemed to have

struck anyone!

"Now, tell me everything, Tamara," Lord Courtray said, as they sat down

on one of the big divans. "Give me a few wrinkles. I can see one wants

to comprehend these tent ropes."

"Well, first they are the nicest people you could possibly meet, Jack,"

Tamara said. "And don't imagine because they skylark like this, and sit

up all night, that they aren't most dignified when they have to be.

That is their charm, this sense of the fitness of things. They have not

got to have any pretence like some of us have. Not one of them has a

scrap of pose. They are nice to you because they like you, or they

leave you entirely alone if they do not. And some days when they are

all together they will whisper and titter and have jokes among

themselves, leaving you completely out in the cold--what would really

be fearful ill-manners with us, but it is not in the least, it is just

they have forgotten you are there, and as likely as not you will be the

center of the whispering in the next minute. They are all like

volcanoes with the most beautiful Faberger enamel on the top."

"And the men? I suppose they make awful love?"

"I don't think so," went on Tamara, while she stupidly blushed. "They

all seem to be just merry friends, and the young ones don't go out very

much. I don't mean the quite, quite young who dance with girls, but the

young men. My godmother says they are very hard worked, and in their

leisure they like to have dinners in their regiments--or at

restaurants--with, with other sort of ladies, where they can do what

they please. It seems a little elementary--don't you think so?"

"Jolly common-sense!" said Jack Courtray.

"And then, you see, if by chance, when they are in the world, if they

do fall in love, it is possible for the lady to get a divorce here

without any scandal and fuss, and the whole clan stick to their own

member, no matter how much in the wrong she may be, and so all is

arranged, and life seems much simpler and apparently happier than it is

with us. If it is really so I cannot say, I have not been here long

enough to judge."