"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.
"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.