He was ceremoniously polite as he helped her in. Nor did he sit too near her or change his manner one atom as they went along. He hardly spoke; indeed they both had to crouch down in the furs to shelter from the blinding snow. And if Tamara had not been so preoccupied with keeping her woollen scarf tight over her head she would have noticed that when they left the park gate they turned to the right, in the full storm, not to the left, where it was clearer and which was the way they had come.
At last the Prince said something to the coachman in Russian, and the man shook his head—the going was terribly heavy. They seemed to be making tracks for themselves through untrodden snow.
"Stépan says we cannot possibly go much further, and we must shelter in the shooting hut," Gritzko announced, gravely; and again Tamara felt a twinge of fear.
"But what has become of the others?" she asked. "Why do we not see their tracks?"
"They are obliterated in five minutes. You do not understand the
Russian storm," he said.
Tamara's heart now began to beat again rather wildly, but she reasoned with herself; she was no coward, and indeed why had she any cause for alarm? No one could be more aloof than her companion seemed. She was already numb with cold too, and her common sense told her shelter of any sort would be acceptable.
They had turned into the forest by now, and the road—if road it could be called—was rather more distinct.
It was a weird scene. The great giant pine trees, and the fine falling flakes penetrating through, the quickly vanishing daylight, and the mist rising from the steaming horses as they galloped along; while Stépan stood there urging them on like some northern pirate at a ship's prow.
At last the view showed the white frozen lake, and by it a rough log hut. They came upon it suddenly, so that Tamara could only realize it was not large and rather low, when they drew up at the porch.
At the time she was too frozen and miserable to notice that the Prince unlocked the door, but afterward she remembered she should have been struck by the strangeness of his having a key.