"This was done up by the late Princess, Tamara," her godmother said.
"Even twenty years ago the taste was perfectly awful, as you can see.
The whole house could be made beautiful if only there was someone who
cared—though I expect we shall be comfortable enough."
The top passage proved to be wide, but only distempered in two colors, like the walls of a station waiting-room. Not the slightest attempt to beautify or furnish with carved chairs, and cabinets of china, and portraits and tapestry on the walls, as in an English house. In the passage all was as plain as a barrack.
Tamara's room and the Princess' joined. They were both gorgeously upholstered in crude blue satin brocade, and full of gilt heavy furniture, but in each there was a modern brass bed.
They were immense apartments, and warm and bright, monuments of the taste of 1878.
"Is it not incredible, Marraine, that with the beautiful models of the eighteenth century in front of them, people could have perpetrated this? Waves of awful taste seem to come, and artists lose their sense of beauty and produce the grotesque."
"This is a paradise compared to some," the Princess laughed. "You should see my sister-in-law's place!"
One bridge table was made up already when they got back to the saloon, and Sonia, Serge Grekoff and Valonne, only waited the Princess' advent to begin their game.
It seemed to be an understood thing that Gritzko and his English guest should be left out, and so practically alone.
"I feel it is my duty to learn to play better," Tamara said, "so I am going to watch."
He put down his hand and seized her wrist. "You shall certainly not," he said. "You cannot be so rude as deliberately to controvert your host. It is my pleasure that you shall sit here and talk."