His Hour. Glyn Elinor

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СКАЧАТЬ 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?"—she 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 СКАЧАТЬ