I
want to be petted and spoilt--I am sad."
Tamara, of course, melted at once! His extraordinarily attractive voice
was very deep and had a note in it which touched her heart.
"Please don't be sad," she said softly. "Perhaps you think I was unkind
to-day, but indeed it was only because--Oh! because it seemed to me
such waste that you--you should be like that."
"It hurt like the fiend, you know," he said, "the thought of the damned
circus. I think we are particularly sensitive as a race to those sort
of things. If you had been a man I would have killed you."
"I hated to hear what you told me," and Tamara looked down. "It seemed
so dreadful--so barbaric--and so childish for a man who really has a
brain. If you were just an animal person like some of the others are,
it would not have mattered; but you--please I would like you never to
do any of these mad things again--"
Then she stopped suddenly and grew tenderly pink. She realized the
inference he must read in her words.
He did not speak for a moment, only devoured her with his great
blue-gray eyes. Of what he was thinking she did not know. It made her
uncomfortable and a little ashamed. Why had she melted, it was never
any use. So she drew herself up stiffly and leaned back in her seat.
Then down at the side by the folds of her dress he caught her hand
while he said quite low:
"Madame, I must know--do you mean that?"
"Yes," she said, and tried to take away her hand.
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