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."