Books: His Hour
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Elinor Glyn >> His Hour
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"I never noticed," said Tamara, without a blush. "I am surprised at you
having looked, Millie--when this view is so fine."
"But, my dear child, I could not possibly help seeing him. How you did
not notice, I can't think; he had pyjamas on, Tamara--and _bare feet!"_
Mrs. Hardcastle almost whispered the last terrible words.
"I suppose he felt hot," said Tamara; "it is a grilling day."
"But really, dear, no nice people, in any weather, remain--er--
undressed at twelve o'clock in the day for passers-by to look at--do
they?"
"Well, perhaps he isn't a nice person," allowed Tamara. "He may be mad.
What was he like, since you saw so much, Millicent?"
Mrs. Hardcastle glanced over her shoulder reproachfully. "You really
speak as though I had looked on purpose," she said. "He seemed very
long--and not fat. I suppose, as his hair was not very dark, he must be
an Englishman."
"Oh, dear, no!" exclaimed Tamara. "Not an Englishman." Then seeing her
friend's expression of surprise, "I mean, it isn't likely an Englishman
would lie on his balcony in pyjamas--at least not the ones we see in
Cairo; they--they are too busy, aren't they?"
This miserably lame explanation seemed to satisfy Millicent. It was too
hot and too disagreeable, she felt, clinging to the donkey while it
descended the steep path, to continue the subject further, having to
turn one's head over the shoulder like that; but when they got on the
broad level she began again:
"Possibly it was a madman, Tamara, sent here with a keeper--in that
out-of-the-way place. How fortunate we had the donkey boys with us!"
Tamara laughed.
"You dear goose, Millie, he couldn't have eaten us up, you know; and he
was not doing the least harm, poor thing. We should not have gone that
way; it may have been his private path."
"Still, no one should lie about undressed," Mrs. Hardcastle protested.
"It is not at all nice. Girls might have been riding with us, and how
dreadful it would have been then."
"Let us forget it, pet!" Tamara laughed, "and trot on and get some real
exercise."
So off they started.
Just as they were turning out of the hotel gate, late in the same
afternoon, a young man on an Arab horse passed the carriage. He was in
ordinary riding dress, and looked a slim, graceful sight as he trotted
ahead.
He never glanced their way. But while Tamara felt a sudden emotion of
sorts, Mrs. Hardcastle exclaimed:
"Look, look! I am sure that is he--the mad man who wore those pyjamas."
CHAPTER III
The Khedive's ball was a fairly fine sight, Tamara thought, but driving
through the streets took such a ridiculously long time, the crowd was
so great. The palace itself was, and probably is still, like all other
palaces that are decorated in that nondescript style of Third Empire
France--not a thing of beauty. But the levée uniforms of the officers
gave an air of brilliance contrasted with the civilians of the
Government of Egypt. Tamara thought their dress very ugly, it reminded
her of a clergyman's at a children's party, where he has been decorated
with caps and sham orders from the crackers to amuse the little guests.
It seemed strange to see the English faces beneath the fez. She and
Millicent Hardcastle walked about and talked to their friends. There
were many smart young gallants in the regiments then quartered in
Cairo, who enjoyed dancing with the slender, youthful widow with the
good jewels and pretty dress, and soon Tamara found herself whirling
with a gay hussar.
"Let us stop near the Royalties and look at the Russians," he said.
"You know, a Grand Duke arrived to-day, and must be here to-night."
They came to a standstill close to the little group surrounding the
Khedive, and amid the splendid uniforms of the Grand Duke's suite there
was one of scarlet, the like of which Tamara had never seen before.
Afterward she learned it was a Cossack of the Emperor's escort, but at
the moment it seemed like a gorgeous fancy dress. The high boots and
long, strangely graceful coat, cut with an Eastern hang, the white
under-dress, the way the loose scarlet sleeves fell at the wrist,
showing the white tight ones, the gold and silver trimmings and the
arms, stuck in the quaint belt, all pleased her eye extremely; and then
she recognized its wearer as the young man of the Sphinx.
How dress changes a person! she thought. He looked at ease now in this
gorgeous garment, and a very prince for a fairy tale. That accounted
for the dreadful gray flannel--he was a soldier and unaccustomed to
wearing ordinary clothes. She had heard that in foreign countries even
the officers wore their uniforms habitually; not as the English do,
merely as an irksome duty.
He did not appear to see her, but when she began dancing again, and
paused once more for breath, she was close to him as he stood some way
apart and alone.
Their eyes met. His had the same whimsical provoking smile in them
which angered and yet attracted her. He made no move to bow to her, nor
did he take any steps to be introduced. She burnt with annoyance.
"He might at least have been presented; it is too impertinent
otherwise!" she thought.
She knew she was looking her best: a fair, distinguished woman as young
and fresh as a girl. Hardly a man in the room was unconscious of her
presence. Anger lent an extra brightness to her eyes and cheeks. She
went on dancing wildly.
The next time she was near the stranger was some half an hour later,
although not once was she able to banish the scarlet form from her
view. He did not dance. He talked now and then to his Prince, and then
he was presented to the official ladies, with the rest of the suite. He
looked bored.
Tamara would not ask his name, which she could have done with ease, as
every one was interested in the Russians and glad to talk about them.
She avoided the English group of bigwigs where they were standing, and
where she had her place--And when they passed the tall Cossack again
she turned upon him a witheringly unconscious glance.
However, this was not to continue the whole night, for presently she
was requested by one of the attachés to come and be presented to the
Grand Duke, and when she had made her curtsey the suite came up in
turn.
"Prince Milaslávski," and she heard one of his friends call him
"Gritzko." The name fell pleasantly on her ears--"Gritzko"! Why was he
such a wretch as to humiliate her so? She felt horribly small. She
ought never to have let him speak to her at the Sphinx. She was being
thoroughly punished for her unconventionality now!
She said a few words in French to each of the others, and then, as he
still stood there with that provoking smile in his splendid eyes, she
turned away almost biting her lip with shame and rage.
Before she knew it she was dancing with a fierce count in green and
silver. Their conversation was interesting.
"You are here since long, Madame?"
"No, Monsieur, only a few weeks, and I go to-morrow."
"Ah! you dance beautifully!"
"Do I? I am glad----"
The Russian Count held her very tightly, and they stopped quite out of
breath, where the screened windows half-hid the poor ladies of the
harem, who watched the throng from their safe retreat.
The Count bowed--and Tamara bowed. A section, not the whole dance, was
evidently the Russian custom.
Then a voice said close to her ear:
"May I, too, have the honor of a turn, Madame?" and she looked up into
the eyes of the Prince.
For a second she hesitated. Her first impulse was to scornfully say no,
but she quickly realized that would be undignified and absurd; so she
said yes, coldly, and let him place his arm about her. The band was
playing a particularly sensuous valse, which drove all young people mad
that year, and--if the Count had danced well--this man's movements were
heaven. Tamara did not speak a word. She purposely did not look at him,
but drooped her proud head so that the flashing diamonds of her tiara
were all he could have seen of her.
He put no special meaning into the way he held her; he just danced
divinely; but there was something in the creature himself of a
perfectly annoying attractiveness--or so it seemed to Tamara.
They at last paused for a moment, and then he spoke. He made not the
slightest allusion to the Sphinx incident. He spoke gravely of Cairo,
and the polo, and the races, and said that his Grand Duke had arrived
that day. He was not on his staff, but was indeed travelling in Egypt
for his own amusement and delectation, he said.
He had been there since November, it seemed, and had been up the Nile,
and had fortunately been able to secure a little bungalow at Mena,
where he could spend some hours of peace.
Then Tamara laughed. She remembered Millicent Hardcastle's
consternation over those unfortunate pyjamas. She wondered if Millicent
would realize that she--Tamara--was dancing with their wearer now! When
she laughed he put his arm around her once more and began dancing. This
time he held her rather closely, and suddenly as she laughed again to
herself provokingly, he clasped her tight.
"If you laugh like that I will kiss you--here in the room," he said.
Tamara stopped dead short. She blazed with anger.
"How dare you be so impertinent?" she said.
They were up in a corner; everyone's back was turned to them happily,
for in one second he had bent and kissed her neck. It was done with
such incredible swiftness and audacity that even had they been observed
it must only have looked as though he bent to pick up something she had
dropped. But the kiss burned into Tamara's flesh.
She could hardly keep the tears of outraged pride from her eyes.
"How dare you! How dare you!" she hissed. "Truly you are making me
ashamed of having let you speak to me last night!"
"Last night?" he said, while he forcibly drew her hand within his arm
and began walking toward the group of her friends. "Last night you were
afraid some should see me from the hotel, and to-night you dare me. Do
it once more and I will kiss your lips!"
Tamara went dead white; she felt as if the ground were sinking beneath
her feet; her knees trembled. In all her smooth, conventionally ordered
life she had never experienced such a strong emotion.
The Prince glanced at her, and the fierceness went out of his eyes. He
bowed gravely with the most courtly homage, and left her standing by
Millicent's side.
Then Tamara remembered she was a lady, and that tenue was expected of
her; so she turned to her friend gaily and said how she was enjoying
the ball; but her fine nostrils quivered at intervals for the rest of
the night.
"Thank God!" she said to herself, when a few hours later she got into
bed--"Thank God! we are going tomorrow. I shall never see him again,
and no one shall ever know."
CHAPTER IV
Next day they started, escorted to the station by a troup of gushing
friends. Their compartment was a bower of flowers, and as each moment
went by Tamara's equanimity was restored by the thought that she would
soon be out of the land of her disgrace.
It is a tiresome journey to Alexandria--dusty and glaring and not of
great interest. They hurried on board the ship when they arrived,
without even glancing at their fellow passengers following in the
gangway. Neither woman was a perfect sailor and both were quite
overcome with fatigue. It promised to be a disagreeable night, too, so
they retired at once to their cabins, and were soon asleep.
The next day, which was Sunday, the wind blew, but by the afternoon
calmed down again, and Tamara decided to dress and go on deck.
"Mrs. Hardcastle went up some hours ago; she was ready for luncheon,
ma'am," her maid told her.
"She left a message for you to join her when you woke."
The ship was the usual sort of ship that goes from Alexandria to
Trieste, and the two English ladies had secured places for their chairs
in the most protected spot. Tamara rather looked forward to being able
to sit there in the moonlight and enjoy the Mediterranean.
Her maid preceded her with her rug and cushion and book, and it was not
until she was quite settled that she took cognizance of an empty chair
at her other side.
"You lazy child!" Millicent Hardcastle said. "To sleep all day like
this! It has been quite beautiful since luncheon, and I have had a most
agreeable time. That extremely polite nice young Russian Prince we met
at the Khedive's ball is here, dear; indeed, that is his chair next
you. He is with Stephen Strong. We have been talking for hours."
Tamara felt suddenly almost cold.
"I never saw him in the train or coming on board," she said, with
almost a gasp.
"Nor did I, and yet he must have been just behind us. Our places at
meals are next him, too. So fortunate he was introduced, because one
could not talk to a strange man, even on a boat. I never can understand
those people who pick up acquaintances promiscuously; can you, dear?"
"No," said Tamara, feebly.
She was pondering what to do. She could not decline to know the Prince
without making some explanation to Millicent. She also could not
flatter him so much. She must just be icily cold, and if he should be
further impertinent she could remain in her cabin.
But what an annoying contretemps! And she had thought she should never
see him again!--and here until Wednesday afternoon, she would be
constantly reminded of the most disgraceful incident in her career. All
brought upon herself, too, by her own action in having lapsed from the
rigid rules in which Aunt Clara had brought her up.
If she had not answered him at the Sphinx--he could not have--but she
refused to dwell upon the shame of this recollection.
She had quite half an hour to grow calm before the cause of her unrest
came even into sight, and when he did, it was to walk past in the
company of their old friend, Stephen Strong.
The Prince raised his cap gravely, and Tamara comforted herself by
noticing again how badly his clothes fitted him! How unsuitable, and
even ridiculous, they were to English eyes--That gave her pleasure!
Also she must have a little fun with Millicent.
"Has it struck you, Millie, the Prince is the same young man we saw in
the pyjamas on the veranda? I am surprised at your speaking to such a
person, even if he has been introduced!"
Mrs. Hardcastle raised an aggrieved head.
"Really, Tamara," she said, "I had altogether forgotten that unpleasant
incident. I wish you had not reminded me of it. He is a most
respectful, modest, unassuming young man. I am sure he would be
dreadfully uncomfortable if he were aware we had seen him so."
"I think he looked better like that than he does now," Tamara rejoined,
spitefully. "Did you ever see such clothes?"
Mrs. Hardcastle whisked right round in her chair and stared at her
friend. She was shocked, in the first place, that Tamara should speak
so lightly of a breach of decorum; and, secondly, she was astonished at
another aspect of the case.
"I thought you never saw him at all that morning!" she exclaimed.
Tamara was nettled.
"Your description was so vivid; besides, I looked back!"
"You _looked back!_ Tamara! after I had told you he wasn't dressed! My
dear, how could you?"
"Well, I did.--Hush! he is coming toward us," and Tamara hurriedly
opened a book and looked down.
"At last Mrs. Loraine has arrived on deck," she heard Millicent say;
and then, for convention's sake she was obliged to glance up and bow
coldly.
The young man did not seem the least impressed; he sat down and pulled
his rug round his knees and gazed out at the sea. The sun had set, and
the moon would soon rise in all her full glory.
There was hardly twilight and the ship's electric lights were already
being lit. The old Englishman, Stephen Strong, greeted her and took the
chair at Mrs. Hardcastle's other side. That lady was in one of her
chatty moods, when each nicely expressed sentence fell from her lips
directly after the other--all so pleasant and easy to understand. No
one ever felt with Millicent he need use an atom of brain. These are
the women men like.
Tamara pretended to read her book, but she was conscious of the near
proximity of the Prince. Nothing so magnetic in the way of a
personality had ever crossed her path as yet.
He sat as still as a statue gazing at the sea. An uncontrollable desire
to look at him shook Tamara, but she dominated it. The discomfort at
last grew so great that she almost trembled.
Then he spoke:
"Have you cat's eyes?" he asked.
Now, when there was a legitimate chance to look at him, she found her
orbs glued to her book.
"Of course not!" she said, icily.
"Then of what use to pretend you are reading in this gloom? The
miserable lantern is not good for a gleam."
Tamara was silent. She even turned a page. She would be irritating,
too!
"That ball was a sight," he continued. "Did you see the harem ladies
peeping from their cage? They looked fat and ugly enough to be wisely
kept there. What a lot of fools they must have thought us, cavorting
for their amusement."
"Poor women!" said Tamara. Her voice was the primmest thing in voices
she had ever heard.
"Why poor women?" he asked. "They have all the pleasures of the body,
and no anxieties; nothing but the little excitement of trying now and
then to poison their rivals! It is the poor Khedive!--Think of his
having to wade through all that fat mass to find one pretty one!"
The tone of this conversation displeased Tamara. She did not wish to
enter into the ethics of the harem. She wished he would be silent
again, only that deep voice of his was so pleasant! His English was
wonderful, too, with hardly the least accent; and when she did allow
herself to look at him she could not help admiring the way his hair
grew, back from a forehead purely Greek. His nose was short and rather
square, while those too beautifully chiseled lips of his had an
expression of extraordinary charm. His whole personality breathed
attraction, every human being who approached him was conscious of it.
As for his eyes, they were enormous, with broad full lids, mystical,
passionate, and yet unconcerned. Always they suggested something
Eastern, though on the whole he was fair. Tamara's own soft brown hair
was only a shade lighter than his.
She was not sure yet, but now thought his eyes were gray.
She could have asked him a number of questions she wanted answered, but
she refrained. He suddenly turned and looked at her full in the face.
He had been gazing fixedly at the sea, and these movements of quickness
were disconcerting, especially as Tamara found herself caught in the
act of studying his features.
"What on earth made you go to the Sphinx?" he asked.
Anger rose in Tamara; the inference was not flattering, in his speech,
or the tone in which he uttered it.
"To count the number of stones the creature is made of, of course," she
said. "Those technical things are what one would go for at that time of
night."
And now her companion rippled with laughter, infectious, joyous
laughter.
"Ah, you are not so stupid as I thought!" he said, frankly. "You looked
poetic and fine with that gauze scarf around your head sitting there--
and then afterwards. Wheugh! It was like a pretty wax doll. I regretted
having wasted the village on you. All that is full of meaning for me."
Tamara was interested in spite of her will to remain reserved, although
she resented the wax-doll part.
"Yes?"--he faltered.
"You can learn all the lessons you want in life from the Sphinx," he
went on. "What paltry atoms you and I are, and how little we matter to
anyone but ourselves! She is cruel, too, and does not hesitate to tear
one in pieces if she wishes and she could make one ready to get drunk
on blood."
Tamara rounded her sweet eyes.
"Then the village there, full of men with the passions of animals,
living from father to son forever the same, wailing for a death,
rejoicing at a birth, taking strong physical pleasure in their marriage
rights and their women, and beating them when they are tired; but you
are too civilized in your country to understand any of these things."
Tamara was stirred; she felt she ought to be shocked.
Contrary to her determination, she asked a question:
"Then you are not civilized in yours?"
"Not nearly so badly," he said. "The primitive forces of life still
give us emotions, when we are not wild; when we are then it is the
jolliest hell."
Tamara was almost repulsed. How could one be so odd as this man? she
thought. Was he a type, or was he mad, or just only most annoyingly
attractive and different from any one else? She found herself thrilled.
Then with a subtle change he turned and almost tenderly wrapped the
rug, which had blown a little down, more securely round her.
"You have such a small white face," he said, the words a caress. "One
must see that you are warm and the naughty winds do not blow you away."
Tamara shivered; she could not have told why.
After this the conversation became general.
Millicent joined in with her obvious remarks. The sea was much
smoother; they would be able to eat some dinner; she had heard there
was a gipsy troupe on board in the third-class, and how nice it would
be to have some music!
And something angered Tamara in the way the Prince assisted in all
this, out-commonplacing her friend in commonplaces with the suavest
politeness, while his grave face betrayed him not even by a twinkle in
the eye. Only when he caught hers; then he laughed a sudden short
laugh, and he whispered:
"What a perfect woman! everything in the right place. Heaven! at the
best times she would do her knitting, and hand one a child every year!
I'll marry when I can find a wife like that!"
Tamara was furious. She resented his ridicule of Millicent, and she was
horrified at the whole speech; so, gathering her rug together, she said
she was cold, and asked Mr. Strong to pace the deck with her. Nor would
she take the faintest further notice of the Prince, until they all went
below to the evening meal.
At dinner he seemed to be practically a stranger again. He was Tamara's
neighbor, but he risked no startling speeches; in fact, he hardly spoke
to her, contenting himself with discussing seafaring matters with the
captain, and an occasional remark to Stephen Strong, who sat beyond
Mrs. Hardcastle. It was unnecessary for her to have decided beforehand
to snub him; he did not give her the chance.
CHAPTER V
On Monday they heard they would arrive at Brindisi on the Tuesday
morning, and Tamara persuaded Mrs. Hardcastle to agree to disembarking
there instead of going on to Trieste.
"We shall be home all the sooner," she said. And so it was settled. But
there was still all Monday to be got through.
It was a perfect day, the blue Mediterranean was not belying its name.
Tamara felt in great spirits, as she came on deck at about eleven
o'clock, to find Millicent taking a vigorous walk round and round with
the Russian Prince. They seemed to be laughing and chattering like old
friends. Again Tamara resented it.
"He is only making fun of poor Millie," she thought, "who never sees a
thing," and she settled herself in her chair and let her eyes feast on
the blue sea----
What should she do with her life? This taste of change and foreign
skies had unsettled her. How could she return to Underwood and the
humdrum everyday existence there? She seemed to see it mapped out on a
plain as one who stood on a mountain. She seemed to realize that always
there had been dormant in her some difference from the others. She
remembered now how often she perceived things that none of them saw,
and she knew it was because of this that it had grown into a habit with
her from early childhood to suppress the expression of her thoughts,
and keep them to herself--until outwardly, at all events, she was of
the same stolid mould as her family. The dears! they could not help it.
But about one point she was determined. She would think and act for
herself in future. Aunt Clara's frown should not prohibit any book or
any action. The world should teach her what it could.
Tamara had received a solid education; now she would profit by it, and
instead of letting all her knowledge lie like a bulb in a root-house,
she would plant it and tend it, and would hope to see sweet flowers
springing forth.
"Next summer I shall be twenty-five years old," she said to herself,
"and the whole thing has been a waste."
Each time the energetic promenaders passed her chair she heard a few
words of their conversation, on hunting often, and the dogs, and the
children, Bertie's cleverness, and Muriel's chickenpox, but always the
Prince seemed interested and polite.
Presently the old man, Stephen Strong, came up and took Mrs.
Hardcastle's chair.
"May I disturb your meditations?" he said. "You look so wise."
"No, I am foolish," Tamara answered. "Now you who know the world must
come and talk and teach me its meaning."
He was rather a wonderful old man, Stephen Strong, purely English to
look at, and purely cosmopolitan in habits and life. He had been in the
diplomatic service years ago, and had been in Egypt in the gorgeous
Ismail time; then a fortune came his way, and he traveled the earth
over. There were years spent in Vienna and Petersburg and Paris, and
always the early winter back in the land of the Sphinx.
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