"Of course," said Stephen Strong. "And even in Paris I don't suppose you would approve of him in that respect, but if you could see him in Petersburg, then I believe you would be like all the rest."
"All which rest?" asked Tamara.
"Women. They simply adore him. Bohemians, great ladies, actresses, dancers, and——"
He was just going to mention those of another world, when he felt
Tamara would hardly understand him, so he stopped short.
Something in her rose up in arms.
"It shows how foolish they are," she said.
Stephen Strong glanced at her sideways, and if she could have read his thoughts they were:
"This sweet Englishwoman is under Gritzko's spell already, and how she is battling against it! She won't have a chance, though, if he makes up his mind to win."
But Tamara, for all her gentle features, was no weakling; only her life had been a long hibernation; and now the spring had come, and soon the time of the finding of honey and a new life.
"What can he be talking about to my friend, Mr. Strong?" she asked, as the two passed again. "Millicent is one of the last women he can have anything in common with; she would simply die of horror if she heard any of these stories—and he can't be interested in a word she says."