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.