CHAPTER XI
Jack Courtray was a thoroughly good all-around sportsman, and had animmense success with women as a rule. His methods were primitive anddirect. When not hunting or shooting, he went straight to the pointwith a beautiful simplicity unhampered by sentiment, and then whenwearied with one woman, moved on to the next.
He was a tremendously good fellow every man said. Just a natural animalcreature, whom grooming and polishing in the family for some hundred orso of years had made into a gentleman.
He was as ignorant as he could well be. To him the geography of theworld meant different places for sport. India represented tigers andelephants. It had no towns or histories that mattered, it had junglesand forests. Africa said lions. Austria, chamois--and Russia, bears!
Women were either sisters, or old friends and jolly comrades--likeTamara. Or they came under the category of sport. A lesser sport, to beindulged in when the rarer beasts were not obtainable for his gun--butstill sport!
He found himself in a delightful milieu. The prospect of certain bearsin the near future--a dear old friend to frolic with in the immediatepresent, and the problematic joys of a possible affair to be indulgedin meanwhile. No wonder he was in the best of spirits, and when Tamara,without _arriere pensee_, took the empty place at his side, he bentover her and filled her plate with the thinnest ham he had been able tocut, with all the apparent air of a devoted lover. And if she hadlooked up she would have seen that the Prince suddenly had begun towatch her with a fierceness in his eyes.
"This is a jolly place," Jack Courtray said. He had just the faintestlisp, which sounded rather attractive, and Tamara, after the storms andemotions of the past few days, found a distinct pleasure and rest inhis obviousness.
It is an ill wind which blows no one any good, for presently the Princeturned and devoted himself to Tatiane Shebanoff.
She was quite the prettiest of all this little clique, petite and fairand sweet. Divorced from a brute of a husband a year or so ago, and nowmarried 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 himselfabout her, and sometimes not.
And so the evening wore on, and apparently it had no distinct sign thatit 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 othercarpeted with great Persian rugs, had huge divans spread about; therewas 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 toTamara and asked her to dance.
There was no trace left of his respectful friendliness! His sleepy eyeswere blazing, he had never looked more oriental, or more savage, ormore intense.
It was almost with a thrill of fear that Tamara yielded herself to hisrequest. He clasped her so tightly she could hardly breathe, all sheknew was she seemed to be floating in the air, and to be crushedagainst his breast.
"Prince, please, I am suffocating!" she cried at last.
Then he swung her off her feet, and stopped by an armchair, and Tamarasubsided into it, panting, not able to speak. And all across hermilk-white chest there were a row of red marks from the heavy silvercartridges, 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 oughtto be disgusted she supposed, and of course she was--such anuncivilized horrible thought! but at the same time every nerve wastingling and her pulse was beating with the strange thrills she hadonly 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 shewrapped around carelessly as she said:
"Nothing, Jack--let's dance!"
"What an awfully decent chap our host is, isn't he!" Lord Courtraysaid, as they ambled along in their valse. "And jolly good-lookingtoo--for a foreigner. These Russians are men after my own heart!"
"Yes, he is good-looking," admitted Tamara. "If he weren't so wild; butdon't you think he has a frightfully savage expression, Jack?"
"If you are intending to play with him, old girl, take my advice, youhad better look out," and he laughed his merry laugh as they stoppedbecause the piano stopped.
Meanwhile the Prince had left the room.
"Gritzko has gone to telephone for a Tzigane band," Princess Soniasaid. "And to the club and to the reception at Madame Sueboffs, andsoon 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 havestruck anyone!
"Now, tell me everything, Tamara," Lord Courtray said, as they sat downon one of the big divans. "Give me a few wrinkles. I can see one wantsto 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 situp 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 notgot to have any pretence like some of us have. Not one of them has ascrap of pose. They are nice to you because they like you, or theyleave you entirely alone if they do not. And some days when they areall together they will whisper and titter and have jokes amongthemselves, leaving you completely out in the cold--what would reallybe fearful ill-manners with us, but it is not in the least, it is justthey have forgotten you are there, and as likely as not you will be thecenter of the whispering in the next minute. They are all likevolcanoes 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. "Theyall seem to be just merry friends, and the young ones don't go out verymuch. I don't mean the quite, quite young who dance with girls, but theyoung men. My godmother says they are very hard worked, and in theirleisure they like to have dinners in their regiments--or atrestaurants--with, with other sort of ladies, where they can do whatthey 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 theydo fall in love, it is possible for the lady to get a divorce herewithout any scandal and fuss, and the whole clan stick to their ownmember, no matter how much in the wrong she may be, and so all isarranged, and life seems much simpler and apparently happier than it iswith us. If it is really so I cannot say, I have not been here longenough to judge."
"It sounds a kind of Utopia," and Lord Courtray laughed. And just thenthe Prince came into the room again, and over to them and they got upand the two men went off together to examine the foils.
Presently the band arrived and more guests, and soon the contre-dansewas begun. That grown-up people could seriously take pleasure in thisamazing romp was a new and delightful idea to Tamara.
It was a sort of enormous quadrille with numerous figures andfarandole, while one sat on a chair between the figures, as at acotillon. And toward the end the company stamped and cried, and theband 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 youa real Russian sight."
They had moved into the ballroom by then, which was now a blaze oflight, while as if by magic the sheet coverings had been removed fromthe chairs.
And the Prince exerted himself
to amuse and please his partner, and didnot again clasp her too tight, only whenever she had turns with hercountryman, his eyes would flame, and he would immediately interruptthem and carry her off.
Tamara felt perfectly happy, she was no longer analyzing andquestioning, 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 Islandswas now the proper thing. This was the delightful part about them--onno occasion was there ever a halt for the consideration of ways andmeans. They wanted some particular amusement and--had it! Convention,from an English point of view, remained an unknown quantity.--Now thosewho decided to continue the feasting all got into their waitingconveyances.
With the thermometer at fifteen degrees Reaumur, a coachman's life isnot one altogether to be envied in Russia, but apparently custom willmake anything endurable.
"I know you like the troika, Tamara," Princess Ardacheff said. "So yougo with Olga and Gritzko and your friend--only be sure you wrap up yourhead."
And when they were all getting in, the Countess Gleboff said:
"It is so terribly cold tonight, Gritzko. I am going to sit with myback 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 JackCourtray one of real worth, for he instantly proceeded to take CountessOlga's hand, while he whispered that he was cold and she could not beso inhuman as to let a poor stranger freeze!
It seemed amusing to look from the windows of a private room, down upona gay supping throng, in the general salle at the restaurant on theIslands, while Tziganes played and their supper was being prepared.
"Who could think it was five o'clock in the morning! What a lesson forour rotten old County Council in London," Jack Courtray said. "By Jove!this is the place for me!" and he proceeded to make violent love toOlga Gleboff, to whose side he remained persistently glued.
And then the gayest repast began; nothing could have been moreentertaining or full of wild _entrain_, and yet no one over-did it, orwas vulgar or coarse.
At the last moment, when they were all starting for home about seveno'clock, Countess Olga decided she could not face the cold of the opensleigh, and Lord Courtray and she got into her motor instead.
It was done so quickly, Tamara was already packed into the troika, andthe outside steeds were prancing in their desire to be off.
"The horses won't stand," the Prince said, and he jumped in beside herand gave the order to go. Thus Tamara found herself alone with himflying over the snow under the stars.
There was a delicious feeling of excitement in her veins. They neitherof 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 wasexperiencing. What frightful tide was this which had swept into herwell-ordered life! She vainly put up her arms and tried to push himaway, but with each sign of revolt he held her the tighter.
"Darling," he said softly in her ear. "My little white soul. Do notfight, it is perfectly useless, because I _will_ do what I wish. See, Iwill be gentle and just caress you, if you do not madden me by tryingto resist!"
Then he gathered her right into his arms, and again bent and mosttenderly kissed her. All power of movement seemed to desert Tamara. Sheonly knew that she was wildly happy, that this was heaven, and shewould wish it never to end.
She ceased struggling and closed her eyes, then he whispered all sortsof cooing love words in Russian and French, and rubbed his velveteyelids against her cheek, and every few seconds his lips would come tomeet her lips.
At last, when they had crossed the Troitzka bridge, he permitted her torelease herself, and only held her hands under the furs, because dawnwas breaking and they could be observed.
But when they turned into the wide Serguiefskaia, which seemeddeserted, he bent once more and this time with wildest passion heseemed to draw her very soul through her lips.
Then ere she could speak, they drew up at the door, and he lifted herout, 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.