His Hour. Glyn Elinor

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СКАЧАТЬ she had grieved with the measure the loss of any one of them would have caused her—that was sincerely and tenderly.

      They were such a nice family, Tamara's!

      For hundreds of years they had lived on the same land, doing their duty to their neighbors and helping to form that backbone of England of which we hear so much nowadays, in its passing away.

      They had been members of Parliament, of solid Whig, and later of

       Unionist, views. They had been staunch Generals, Chairmen of

       Quarter-Sessions, riders to hounds, subscribers to charities, rigid

       church-goers, disciplined, orthodox, worthy members of society.

      Underdown was their name, and Underwood their home.

      That Tamara should have been given that Russian appellation, in a group of Gladys, Mabels and Dorothys, must have surely indicated that fate meant her to follow a line not quite so mapped out as that of her sisters'. The very manner of her entry into the world was not in accordance with the Underdown plan.

      Her mother, Lady Gertrude Underdown, had contracted a friendship with the wife of the First Secretary of the Russian Embassy.

      Foreigners were not looked upon with favor in the home circle, and instead of staying only the two months of May and June, as she was fully entitled to, in London, she had insisted upon remaining for July as well that year—to be near her friend Vera and enjoy the gay world.

      The Squire had grumbled, but acquiesced, though when afterward a fourth daughter was presented to him with a request that she might have Princess Vera for a godmother and a Russian name to be called by, he felt himself justified in carping at fate.

      "Foreign fandangoes," he designated such ideas. However, Lady Gertrude was very ill, and had to be humored, so the affair took place, and Tamara the baby was christened, with due state.

      There were no more Russian suggestions in the family; the son and heir

       who arrived a year later became plain Tom, and then Lady Gertrude

       Underdown made her bow to the world and retired to the family vault in

       Underwood Church.

      They were all estimably brought up by an aunt, and hardly ever left the country until each one came up in turn to be presented at Court, and go through a fairly dull season among country neighbors on the same bent.

      Two of them, including Tamara, had secured suitable husbands, and at the age of twenty-three years the latter had been left a well-dowered widow.

      She had worn mourning for just the right period, had looked after her affairs—handed James' place over with a good grace to James' brother and an unliked sister-in-law, and finally, when she was wearing grays and mauves, two years almost after her loss, she had allowed herself to be persuaded into taking a trip to Egypt with her friend, Millicent Hardcastle, who was recovering from influenza.

      It had caused the greatest flutter at Underwood, this journey abroad!

       None of them had been further than Dresden, where each girl had learned

       German for a year or so before her presentation.

      And what had Egypt done for Tamara? Lifted just one pretty white eyelid, perhaps. Stirred something which only once or twice in her life she had been dimly conscious of. Everything had been a kind of shock to her. A shock of an agreeable description. And once driving at night in the orange groves of Ghezireh, after some open-air fête, the heavy scent and intoxicating atmosphere had made her blood tingle. She felt it was almost wrong that things should so appeal to her senses. Anything which appealed deliberately to the senses had always been considered as more than almost wrong at Underwood Chase.

      The senses were improper things which Aunt Clara for her part never quite understood why the Almighty should have had the bad taste to permit in human beings.

      But the Sphinx was again talking to Tamara—only this time in the voice of a young man—who without a word of warning had risen from a bank of sand where he had been stretched motionless and unperceived.

      "A fine goddess, is she not, Madame," he said. And to add to the impertinence of a stranger's addressing her at all, Tamara was further incensed by the voice being that of a foreigner!

      But it was an extraordinarily pleasant voice, deep and tuneful, and the "Insolent" stood over six feet high and was as slender as Tamara herself almost—in spite of his shoulders and air of strength.

      She hardly knew what to answer, he had spoken with such ease and assurance, almost with the tone of one who hails a fellow worshiper and has a right to exchange sympathy.

      Tamara had been startled, too, by the sudden rising of the man when she thought she was alone, but at last she answered slowly, "Yes."

      "I often come here at night," he went on, "when those devils of tourists have gone back in their devil of a tramway. Then you get her alone—and she says things to you. You think so, too, isn't it?"

      "Yes," again said Tamara, convulsed with wonder at herself for speaking at all.

      "At first I was angry when I saw your camel against the sky and saw you come and dismount and sit and look, I like to have her all to myself. But afterwards when I watched you I saw you meant no harm—you aren't a tourist, and so you did not matter."

      "Indeed," said Tamara, the fine in her grasping the situation, the

       Underdown training resenting its unconventionality.

      "Yes," he continued, unconcerned. "You can't look at that face and feel we any of us matter much—can you?"

      "No," said Tamara.

      "How many thousand years has she been telling people that? But it drives me mad, angry, furious, to see the tourists! I want to strangle them all!"

      He clenched his hand and his eyes flashed.

      Tamara peeped up at him—he was not looking at her—but at the Sphinx. She saw that he was extremely attractive in spite of having un-English clothes, which were not worn with ease. Gray flannel of unspeakable cut, and boots which would have made her brother Tom shriek with laughter. The Underdown part of her whispered, could he be quite a gentleman? But when he turned his face full upon her in the moonlight, that doubt vanished completely. He might even be a very great gentleman, she thought.

      "Would you like to see a bit of the Arabian Nights?" he asked her.

      Tamara rose. This really ought not to go on, this conversation—and yet—

      "Yes, I would," she said.

      "Well, the spell is broken of the Sphinx," he continued. "She can't talk to me with you there, and she can't talk to you with me near, so let us go and see something else that is interesting together."

      "What?" asked Tamara.

      "The Sheikh's village down below. Half the people who come don't realize it is there, and the other half would be afraid to ride through it at night—but they know me and I will take care of you."

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