His Hour

Chapter 11

Jack Courtray was a thoroughly good all-around sportsman, and had an

immense success with women as a rule. His methods were primitive and

direct. When not hunting or shooting, he went straight to the point

with a beautiful simplicity unhampered by sentiment, and then when

wearied with one woman, moved on to the next.

He was a tremendously good fellow every man said. Just a natural animal

creature, whom grooming and polishing in the family for some hundred or

so of years had made into a gentleman.

He was as ignorant as he could well be. To him the geography of the

world meant different places for sport. India represented tigers and

elephants. It had no towns or histories that mattered, it had jungles

and forests. Africa said lions. Austria, chamois--and Russia, bears!

Women were either sisters, or old friends and jolly comrades--like

Tamara. Or they came under the category of sport. A lesser sport, to be

indulged in when the rarer beasts were not obtainable for his gun--but

still sport!

He found himself in a delightful milieu. The prospect of certain bears

in the near future--a dear old friend to frolic with in the immediate

present, and the problematic joys of a possible affair to be indulged

in meanwhile. No wonder he was in the best of spirits, and when Tamara,

without _arrire pense_, took the empty place at his side, he

bent over her and filled her plate with the thinnest ham he had been

able to cut, with all the apparent air of a devoted lover. And if she

had looked up she would have seen that the Prince suddenly had begun to

watch her with a fierceness in his eyes.

"This is a jolly place," Jack Courtray said. He had just the faintest

lisp, which sounded rather attractive, and Tamara, after the storms and

emotions of the past few days, found a distinct pleasure and rest in

his obviousness.

It is an ill wind which blows no one any good, for presently the Prince

turned and devoted himself to Tatiane Shbanoff.

She was quite the prettiest of all this little clique, petite and fair

and sweet. Divorced from a brute of a husband a year or so ago, and now

married to an elderly Prince.

And she loved Gritzko with passion, and while she was silent about it,

her many friends told him so.

For his part he remained unconcerned, and sometimes troubled himself

about her, and sometimes not.

And so the evening wore on, and apparently it had no distinct sign that

it was to be one of the finger-posts of fate.

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.

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."

"It sounds a kind of Utopia," and Lord Courtray laughed. And just then

the Prince came into the room again, and over to them and they got up

and the two men went off together to examine the foils.

Presently the band arrived and more guests, and soon the contre-danse

was begun. That grown-up people could seriously take pleasure in this

amazing romp was a new and delightful idea to Tamara.

It was a sort of enormous quadrille with numerous figures and

farandole, while one sat on a chair between the figures, as at a

cotillon. And toward the end the company stamped and cried, and the

band sang, and nothing could have been more gay and exciting and wild.

Before they began, the Prince came up to Tamara and said:

"I want you to dance this with me. I have had it on purpose to show you

a real Russian sight."

They had moved into the ballroom by then, which was now a blaze of

light, while as if by magic the sheet coverings had been removed from

the chairs.

And the Prince exerted himself to amuse and please his partner, and did

not again clasp her too tight, only whenever she had turns with her

countryman, his eyes would flame, and he would immediately interrupt

them and carry her off.

Tamara felt perfectly happy, she was no longer analyzing and

questioning, and she was no longer fighting against her inclination.

She abandoned herself to the rushing stream of life.

It was about five o'clock when some one suggested supper at the Islands

was now the proper thing. This was the delightful part about them--on

no occasion was there ever a halt for the consideration of ways and

means. They wanted some particular amusement and--had it! Convention,

from an English point of view, remained an unknown quantity.--Now those

who decided to continue the feasting all got into their waiting

conveyances.

With the thermometer at fifteen degrees Reaumur, a coachman's life is

not one altogether to be envied in Russia, but apparently custom will

make anything endurable.

"I know you like the troika, Tamara," Princess Ardcheff said. "So you

go with Olga and Gritzko and your friend--only be sure you wrap up your

head."

And when they were all getting in, the Countess Glboff said:

"It is so terribly cold tonight, Gritzko. I am going to sit with my

back to the horses, so as not to get the wind in my face."

When they were tucked in under the furs this arrangement seemed to Jack

Courtray one of real worth, for he instantly proceeded to take Countess

Olga's hand, while he whispered that he was cold and she could not be

so inhuman as to let a poor stranger freeze!

It seemed amusing to look from the windows of a private room, down upon

a gay supping throng, in the general salle at the restaurant on the

Islands, while Tziganes played and their supper was being prepared.

"Who could think it was five o'clock in the morning! What a lesson for

our rotten old County Council in London," Jack Courtray said. "By Jove!

this is the place for me!" and he proceeded to make violent love to

Olga Glboff, to who's side he remained persistently glued.

And then the gayest repast began; nothing could have been more

entertaining or full of wild _entrain_, and yet no one over-did

it, or was vulgar or coarse.

At the last moment, when they were all starting for home about seven

o'clock, Countess Olga decided she could not face the cold of the open

sleigh, and Lord Courtray and she got into her motor instead.

It was done so quickly, Tamara was already packed into the troika, and

the outside steeds were prancing in their desire to be off.

"The horses won't stand," the Prince said, and he jumped in beside her

and gave the order to go. Thus Tamara found herself alone with him

flying over the snow under the stars.

There was a delicious feeling of excitement in her veins. They neither

of them spoke for a while, but the Prince drew nearer and yet nearer,

and presently his arm slipped round her, and he folded her close.

"Doushka," he whispered. "I hate the Englishman--and life is so short.

Let us taste it while we may," and then he bent and kissed her lips!

Tamara struggled against the intense intoxicating emotion she was

experiencing. What frightful tide was this which had swept into her

well-ordered life! She vainly put up her arms and tried to push him

away, but with each sign of revolt he held her the tighter.

"Darling," he said softly in her ear. "My little white soul. Do not

fight, it is perfectly useless, because I _will_ do what I wish.

See, I will be gentle and just caress you, if you do not madden me by

trying to resist!"

Then he gathered her right into his arms, and again bent and most

tenderly kissed her. All power of movement seemed to desert Tamara. She

only knew that she was wildly happy, that this was heaven, and she

would wish it never to end.

She ceased struggling and closed her eyes, then he whispered all sorts

of cooing love words in Russian and French, and rubbed his velvet

eyelids against her cheek, and every few seconds his lips would come to

meet her lips.

At last, when they had crossed the Troitzka bridge, he permitted her to

release herself, and only held her hands under the furs, because dawn

was breaking and they could be observed.

But when they turned into the wide Serguiefskaia, which seemed

deserted, he bent once more and this time with wildest passion he

seemed to draw her very soul through her lips.

Then ere she could speak, they drew up at the door, and he lifted her

out, and before the Suisse and the waiting footmen.

"Good-night, Madame--sleep well," he calmly said.

But Tamara, trembling with mad emotion, rushed quickly to her room.