Tamara looked down and clasped her hands.
"But it does not seem likely to happen, does it, Marraine?"
"I would like him to love you, dear child," she said; and then as Tamara did not answer she went on softly almost to herself: "My brother Alexis was just such another as Gritzko. That season he spent with me in London, when your mother and I were young, he played all sorts of wild pranks. We three were always together. He was killed in a duel after, you know. It was all very sad."
Then they checked sentiment and went to dress for dinner, arm in arm. They had grown real friends in these three short weeks.
The scene at the ballet was most brilliant, as it is always on a Sunday night. The great auditorium, with its blue silk-curtained boxes, the mass of glittering uniforms, and the ladies in evening-dress, although they were all in black, made a gay spectacle almost like a gala night. Then it is so delightful to have one's eyes pleased with what is on the stage and yet be able to talk.
But Tamara, as she sat and looked at it, was not enjoying herself. She was overcome with a vague feeling of unrest. She hated having to admit that the Prince was the cause of it. She could not look ahead; she was full of fear. She knew now that when he was near her she experienced certain emotion, that he absorbed far too much of her thoughts. He did not really care for her probably, and if he did, how could one hope to be happy with such a wild, fierce man? No, she must control herself; she must conquer his influence over her, and if she could not she could at least go away. England seemed very uninteresting and calm--and safe!
Filled with these sage resolutions she tried to fix her eyes on the stage, but unconsciously they continually strayed to a tall blue figure which was seated in the front row of the stalls with a number of officers of the Chevaliers Gardes. And when the curtain went down,--and instead of the Prince joining them in the box, as she fully expected he would do, he calmly leaned against the orchestra division and surveyed the house with his glasses--she felt a sudden pang, and talked as best she might to the many friends who thronged to pay the Princess court.
Gritzko did not even glance their way! he stood laughing with his comrades, and it would have been impossible to imagine anything more insouciant and attractive and provoking than the creature looked.