"Thirty versts, Tantine--we shall go in troikas--but you must send your
servants on the night before."
Then he turned to Tamara, who seemed wonderfully absorbed, almost
whispering to Stephen Strong. "Did you sleep well, Madame?" he said.
There was an expression of mocking defiance in his glance, which
angered Tamara. However, faithful to her resolutions, she kept herself
calm.
"Never better, thank you, Prince. It was a most interesting evening,
and I am learning the customs of the country," she said. "The thing
which strikes me most is your wonderful chivalry to women--especially
strange women."
They looked into one another's eyes and measured swords, and if she had
known it she had never so deeply attracted him before.
She had broached the subject of her return to England to her godmother,
who had laughed the idea to scorn, but now she spoke to Gritzko as if
it were an established fact.
"I go home from Moscow, you know," she said.
"You find our country too cold?" he asked.
"It is too full of contrasts, freezing one moment and thawing the next,
and while outside one is turned to ice, indoors one is consumed with
heat; it is upsetting to the equilibrium."
"All the same, you will not go," and he leaned back in the chair with
his provoking lazy smile.
"Indeed, I shall."
"We shall see. There are a number of things for you to learn yet.
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