"I say, my child—there! there!—this will never do," and he continued to pet and try to comfort her, but all she could reply was to ask him to go, and to promise her not to say anything about her outburst of tears to any one.
And, horribly distressed, Jack did what she wished, running against Gritzko in the passage as he went out; but they had met before that day, so he did not stop, but, nodding in his friendly way, passed down the stairs.
Tamara sat where he had left her, the tears still trickling over her cheeks, while she stared into the fire. The vision she saw there of her future did not console her.
To be married to a man whom she knew she would daily grow to love more—every moment of her time conscious that the tie was one of sufferance, her pride and self respect in the dust—it was a miserable picture.
Gritzko came in so quietly through the anteroom that, lost in her troubled thoughts, she did not hear him until he was quite close. She gave a little startled exclamation and then looked at him defiantly—she was angry that he saw her tears.
His face went white and his voice grew hoarse with overmastering emotion.
"What has happened between you and your friend, Madame? Tell me the truth. No man should see you cry! Tell me everything, or I will kill him."
And he stood there his eyes blazing.
Then Tamara rose and drew herself to her full height, while a flash of her vanished pride returned to her mien, and with great haughtiness she answered in a cold voice:
"I beg you to understand one thing, Prince, I will not be insulted by suspicions and threats against my friends. Lord Courtray and I have been brought up as brother and sister. We spoke of my home, which I may never see again, and I told him what he was to say to them there when they asked about me. If I have cried I am ashamed of my tears, and when you speak and act as you have just done, it makes me ashamed of the feeling which caused them."