"Well, why don't you marry her then?" suggested the Princess.
"Perhaps I shall--if she does not drive me to doing something mad
first. I don't know what I intend. It may be to go off to the Caucasus,
or to stay and make her love me so deeply that she will forgive me--no
matter what I do."
He paused a moment, and his great eyes filled with mist, and then the
wild light grew.
"If ever she becomes my Princess, she shall be entirely for me. I will
not let her have a look or thought for any other man. All must be
mine--unshared, and then she shall be my queen."
Princess Ard?cheff leant back and looked at him. He was in his blue
uniform with the scarlet underdress; and even she--old woman and fond
friend--could not help picturing the gorgeous joy such a fate would
give--to have him for a lover! to see his fierce, proud head bent in
devotion, to feel his tender caress. Tamara must be an unutterable fool
if she should hesitate.
But what he had said was not reassuring in its prospect of calm. She
felt she must put in some small word of admonition.
"You will be careful won't you, Gritzko?" she ventured to suggest.
"Remember, Tamara is an Englishwoman, and not accustomed to your ways."
"It will depend upon herself," he said. "If she goes on teasing me I do
not know what I shall do. If she does not--"
"You will be good?"
"Possibly.
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