His Hour

Chapter 5

On Monday they heard they would arrive at Brindisi on the Tuesday

morning, and Tamara persuaded Mrs. Hardcastle to agree to disembarking

there instead of going on to Trieste.

"We shall be home all the sooner," she said. And so it was settled. But

there was still all Monday to be got through.

It was a perfect day, the blue Mediterranean was not belying its name.

Tamara felt in great spirits, as she came on deck at about eleven

o'clock, to find Millicent taking a vigorous walk round and round with

the Russian Prince. They seemed to be laughing and chattering like old

friends. Again Tamara resented it.

"He is only making fun of poor Millie," she thought, "who never sees a

thing," and she settled herself in her chair and let her eyes feast on

the blue sea----

What should she do with her life? This taste of change and foreign

skies had unsettled her. How could she return to Underwood and the

humdrum everyday existence there? She seemed to see it mapped out on a

plain as one who stood on a mountain. She seemed to realize that always

there had been dormant in her some difference from the others. She

remembered now how often she perceived things that none of them saw,

and she knew it was because of this that it had grown into a habit with

her from early childhood to suppress the expression of her thoughts,

and keep them to herself--until outwardly, at all events, she was of

the same stolid mould as her family. The dears! they could not help it.

But about one point she was determined. She would think and act for

herself in future. Aunt Clara's frown should not prohibit any book or

any action. The world should teach her what it could.

Tamara had received a solid education; now she would profit by it, and

instead of letting all her knowledge lie like a bulb in a root-house,

she would plant it and tend it, and would hope to see sweet flowers

springing forth.

"Next summer I shall be twenty-five years old," she said to herself,

"and the whole thing has been a waste."

Each time the energetic promenaders passed her chair she heard a few

words of their conversation, on hunting often, and the dogs, and the

children, Bertie's cleverness, and Muriel's chickenpox, but always the

Prince seemed interested and polite.

Presently the old man, Stephen Strong, came up and took Mrs.

Hardcastle's chair.

"May I disturb your meditations?" he said. "You look so wise."

"No, I am foolish," Tamara answered. "Now you who know the world must

come and talk and teach me its meaning."

He was rather a wonderful old man, Stephen Strong, purely English to

look at, and purely cosmopolitan in habits and life. He had been in the

diplomatic service years ago, and had been in Egypt in the gorgeous

Ismail time; then a fortune came his way, and he traveled the earth

over. There were years spent in Vienna and Petersburg and Paris, and

always the early winter back in the land of the Sphinx.

"The world," he said, as he arranged himself in the chair, "is an

extremely pleasant place if one takes it as it is, and does not quarrel

with it. One must not be intolerant, and one must not be hypercritical.

See it all and make allowances for the weakness of the human beings who

inhabit it."

"Yes," said Tamara, "I know you are right; but so many of us belong to

a tribe who think their point of view the only one. I do, for instance;

that is why I say I am foolish."

The walkers passed again.

"There is a type for you to study," Stephen Strong said. "Prince

Milaslvski. I have known him for many years, since he was a child

almost; he is about twenty-nine or thirty now, and really a rather

interesting personality."

"Yes," said Tamara, honestly, "I feel that. Tell me about him?"

Stephen Strong lit a cigar and puffed for a few seconds, then he

settled himself with the air of a person beginning a narrative.

"He came into his vast fortune rather too young, and lived rather

fiercely. His mother was a Basmanoff; that means a kind of Croesus in

Russia. He is a great favorite with the powers that be, and is in the

Cossacks of the Escort. Something in their wild freedom appealed to him

more than any other corps. He is a Cossack himself on the mother's side,

and the blood is all rather wild, you know."

Tamara looked as she felt--interested.

"They tell the most tremendous stories about him," the old man went on,

"hugely exaggerated, of course; but the fact remains, he is a

fascinating, restless, dauntless character."

"What sort of stories?" asked Tamara, timidly.

"Not all fit for your ears, gentle lady," laughed Stephen Strong.

"Sheer devilment, mostly. It was the amusement in the beginning to dare

him to anything, the maddest feats. He ran off with a nun once, it is

said, for a bet, and deposited her in the house of the man she had

loved before her vows were taken. That was in Poland. Then he has

orgies sometimes at his country place, when every one is mad for three

days on end. It causes terrible scandal. Then he comes back like a

lamb, and purrs to all the old ladies. They say he obeys neither God

nor the Devil--only the Emperor on this earth."

"How dreadful!" force of habit made Tamara say, while her thoughts

unconsciously ran into interested fascination.

"He is absolutely fearless, and as cool as an Englishman, and there are

not any mean things told about him, though," Steven Strong continued,

"and indeed sometimes he lives the simplest country life with his

horses and dogs, and his own people worship him, I believe. But there

is no wildest prank he is incapable of if his blood is up."

"I think he looks like it," said Tamara. "Is it because he habitually

wears uniform that his ordinary clothes fit so badly? To our eyes he

seems dressed like some commis voyageur."

"Of course," said Stephen Strong. "And even in Paris I don't suppose

you would approve of him in that respect, but if you could see him in

Petersburg, then I believe you would be like all the rest."

"All which rest?" asked Tamara.

"Women. They simply adore him. Bohemians, great ladies, actresses,

dancers, and----"

He was just going to mention those of another world, when he felt

Tamara would hardly understand him, so he stopped short.

Something in her rose up in arms.

"It shows how foolish they are," she said.

Stephen Strong glanced at her sideways, and if she could have read his

thoughts they were:

"This sweet Englishwoman is under Gritzko's spell already, and how she

is battling against it! She won't have a chance, though, if he makes up

his mind to win."

But Tamara, for all her gentle features, was no weakling; only her life

had been a long hibernation; and now the spring had come, and soon the

time of the finding of honey and a new life.

"What can he be talking about to my friend, Mr. Strong?" she asked, as

the two passed again. "Millicent is one of the last women he can have

anything in common with; she would simply die of horror if she heard

any of these stories--and he can't be interested in a word she says."

"He always does the unexpected," and Stephen Strong laughed as he said

it. He himself was amused at this ill-matched pair.

"Mrs. Hardcastle is agreeable to look at, too," he continued.

Tamara smiled scornfully.

"That is the lowest view to take. One should be above material

appearance."

"Charming lady!" said Stephen Strong. "Yes, indeed you do not know the

world."

Tamara was not angry. She looked at him and smiled, showing her

beautiful teeth.

"Of course you think me a goose," she said, "but I warned you I was

one. Tell me, shall I ever grow out of it--tell me, you who know?"

"If the teacher is young and handsome enough to make your heart beat,"

said her old companion. And then Millicent and the Prince joined them.

Mrs. Hardcastle's round blue eyes were flashing brightly, and her fresh

face was aglow with exercise and enjoyment.

"Tamara dear, you are too incorrigibly lazy. Why do you sit here

instead of taking exercise? and you have no idea of the interesting

things the Prince has been telling me. All about a Russian poet

called--oh, I can't pronounce the name, but who wrote of a devil--not

exactly Faust, you know, though something like it."

Tamara noticed that amused, whimsical, mocking gleam in the Cossack's

great eyes, but Millicent went gaily on, unconscious of anything but

herself.

"I mean those mythical, strange sort of devils who come to earth, you

know, and--and--make love to ladies--a sort of Satan like in Marie

Corelli's lovely book. You remember, Tamara, the one you were so funny

about, laughing when you read it."

"You mean 'The Demon' of Lermontoff, probably, Millicent, don't you?"

Tamara said. "A friend of my mother's translated it into English, and I

have known it since I was a child. I think it must be very fine in the

original," and she looked at the Prince.

In one moment his face became serious and sympathetic.

"You know our great poet's work, then?" he said, surprised. "One would

not have thought it!"

Then again Tamara's anger rose. There was always the insinuation in his

remarks, seemingly unconscious, and therefore the more irritating, that

she was a commonplace fool.

"Her name--the heroine's--is the same as my own," she said, gravely;

but there was a challenge in her eyes.

"Tamara!" he said. "Well--it could be--a devil might come your way, but

you would kneel and pray, and eat bonbons, and not listen to him."

"It would depend upon the devil," she said.

"Those who live the longest will see the most," and the Prince put back

his head and laughed with real enjoyment at his thoughts, just as he

had done when the two goats had butted at one another in the road.

Tamara felt her cheeks blaze with rage, but she would not enter the

lists, in spite of the late challenge in her eyes.

Mr. Strong had vacated Millicent's chair and taken his own. The party

soon settled into their legitimate places, and Tamara again took up her

book.

"No, don't read," the Prince said. "You get angry at once with me when

we talk, and the red comes into your cheeks, and I like it."

Exasperation was almost uncontrollable in Tamara. She remained silent,

only the little ear next the Prince burned scarlet.

"Some day you will come to Russia," he said, "and then you will learn

many things."

"I have no desire to go there," said Tamara, lying frankly, as it had

always been her great wish, and indeed her godmother, who never forgot

her, had often begged her to visit that northern clime; but Russia!--as

well have suggested the moon at Underwood.

"It would freeze you, perhaps, or burn you--who can tell?" the Prince

said. "One would see when you got there. I have an old lady, a dear

friend, with white hair and a mole on her cheek--someone who sees

straight. She would be good for your education."

Tamara thought it would be wiser not to show any further annoyance, so

she said lightly:

"Yes, I am only sixteen, and have never left the schoolroom; it would

be delightful to be taught how to live."

He turned and smiled at her.

"You hardly look any more--twenty, perhaps, and--never kissed!"

A memory rose up of a scorched neck, and suddenly Tamara's long

eyelashes rested on her cheek.

Then into his splendid eyes came a fierce, savage, passionate gleam,

which she did not see, but dimly felt, and he said in a low voice a

little thick:

"And--as--yet--never really kissed."

"Milly," said Tamara, as calmly as she could, "what time do we get into

Brindisi to-morrow morning? And think of it, on Thursday night we shall

be at home."

Home seemed so very safe!

The Prince did not come in to luncheon, something was the matter with

his Arab horse, and he had gone to see to it just before--a concern on

his face as of the news of illness to his nearest kin.

Tamara was gay and charming, and laughed with Stephen Strong and the

captain in quite an unusual way for her. They both thought her an

adorable woman. Poor Tamara! and so she really was.

About tea-time Prince Milaslvski turned up again.

"He is all right now," he said, sure that his listeners were in perfect

sympathy with him. "It was those fools down there. I have made them

suffer, I can say," and then he turned to Stephen Strong. "Among the

steerage there is an Alexandrian gipsy troupe. I have ordered them up

to sing to us to-night, since Madame wished it," and he turned upon

Millicent an air of deep devotion.

"Common ragged creatures, but one with some ankles and one with a voice.

In any case, we must celebrate these ladies' last night."

And thus the terrible present end to their acquaintance fell about!

Nothing could have been more charming than the Prince was until

dinner-time, and indeed through that meal, only he made Stephen Strong

change places with him, so that he might be next Mrs. Hardcastle, much

to that lady's delight.

"He is really too fascinating," she said, as she came into Tamara's

cabin to fetch her for the evening meal. "I hardly think Henry would

like his devotion to me. What do you think, dear?"

"I am sure he would be awfully jealous, Milly darling; you really must

be careful," Tamara said. And with a conscious air of complacent

pleasantly tickled virtue Mrs. Hardcastle led the way to the saloon.

It was not possible, Tamara thought, that anything so terribly

unpleasant as the Prince's having too much champagne at dinner, could

have accounted for his simply scandalous behavior after; and yet surely

that would have been the kindest thing to say. But, no, it was not

that.

This was, in brief, the scene which was enacted on the upper deck:

With the permission of the captain, the gipsy troupe were brought, and

began their performance, tame enough at the commencement until the

Prince gave orders for them to be supplied with unlimited champagne,

and then the wildest dancing began. They writhed and gesticulated and

undulated in a manner which made Millicent cling on to her chair, grow

crimson in the face, and finally start to her feet.

But the worst happened when the Prince rose and, taking a tambourine,

began, with a weird shriek, to beat it wildly, his eyes ablaze and his

lips apart.

Then, seizing the chief dancer and banging it upon her head, he held

his arm about her heaving breast, as she turned to him with a

serpentine movement of voluptuous delight.

In a second he had caught hold of her, and had lifted and swung her far

out over the dark blue waters, then, with a swirl to the side, held her

suspended in the air above the open deck below.

"Ha, ha!" yelled the troupe, in frenzied pleasure, and, nimble as a

cat, one rough dark man rushed down the ladder and caught the hanging

woman in his arms. Then they all clapped and cheered and shrieked with

joy, while the Prince, putting his hands in his pockets, pulled out

heaps of gold and flung it among them.

"Back to hell, rats!" he shouted, laughing. "See, you have frightened

the ladies. You should all be killed!"

For Tamara and Millicent had risen, and with stately steps had quitted

the scene.

It was all too terrible and too vulgarly melodramatic, Tamara thought,

especially that touching of the woman and that flinging of the gold,

the latter caused by the same barbaric instinct which made him throw

the silver in the Sheikh's village by the moonlit Sphinx, only this was

worse a thousandfold.

The next morning the two ladies left the ship at Brindisi before

either the Prince or Stephen Strong was awake. Both were silent upon

the subject of the night before, until Millicent at last said when they

were in the train:

"Tamara--you won't tell Henry or your family, will you, dear? Because

really, last night he was so fascinating--but that dancing! I am sure

you feel, with me, we could have died of shame."