It seemed an eternity before coffee was finished and the four retired
to their bridge. Then the two passed out of the room and on into the
blue salon.
It was extremely difficult for both of them. The Prince could scarcely
control his mad longing to caress her. Only that strange turn in his
character held him. Also the knowledge that once he were to grant
himself an inch he could never restrain the whole of his wild passion,
and there were yet five days before she should be really his--.
Tamara looked a white, frozen shape as she almost fell into the sofa
below the Falconet group. Cupid with his laughing eyes peeped down and
mocked her. Gritzko did not sit beside her. He took a chair and leant
on a table near.
"We had good sport," he said dryly. "Your friend can hit things. We got
two bears."
"Jack must have been pleased," Tamara answered dully.
"And your family--they arrive on Monday, isn't it?" he asked. "Your
brother and sister and the estimable Mrs. Hardcastle?" and he laughed
as he always did at the mention of Millicent. "They will wonder, won't
they, why you are marrying this savage! but they will not know."
"No!" said Tamara. "They must never know." Gritzko's face became
whimsical, a disconcerting, mischievous provoking smile stole into his
eyes.
"Do you know yourself?" he asked.
She looked up at him startled. It was her habit now never to meet his
eyes. Indeed, the sense of humiliation under which she lived had
changed all her fearless carriage of head.
"Why do you ask such questions? I might as well ask you why are you
marrying me. We both know that we cannot help it," and there was a
break in her voice which touched him profoundly.
"Answer for yourself please, I may have several other reasons," he said
coldly, and got up and walked across the room picking up a bibelot here
and there, and replacing it restlessly.
Tamara longed to ask him what these reasons were. She was stirred with
a faint hope, but she had not the courage, the intensity of her feeling
made her dumb.
"They--Tantine--or Sonia--have explained to you all the service, I
suppose," he said at last. "It is different to yours in your country.
It means much more--"
"And is more easily broken."
"That is so, but we shall not break ours, except by death," and he
raised his head proudly. "From Wednesday onward the rest of your life
belongs to me."