The silence seemed to be the first thing she remarked on reaching the frontier. The porters were so grave and quiet, with their bearded kindly faces, many of them like the saints and Biblical characters in Sunday-school picture books at home.
And finally she arrived at St. Petersburg, and found her godmother waiting for her on the platform. They recognized each other immediately. Tamara had several photographs of the Princess Ardácheff.
"Welcome, ma filleule," that lady cried, while she shook her hand.
"After all these years I can have you in my house."
They said all sorts of mutually agreeable things on their way thither, and they looked at each other shyly.
"She is not beautiful," ran the Princess' comments. "Though she has a superb air of breeding—that is from her poor mother—but her eyes are her father's eyes. She is very sweet, and what a lovely skin—yes, and eyelashes—and probably a figure when one can see beneath the furs—tall and very slender in any case. Yes, I am far from disappointed—far."
And Tamara thought:
"My godmother is a splendid-looking lady! I like her bright brown eyes and that white hair; and what a queer black mole upon her left cheek, like an early eighteenth-century beauty spot. Where have I heard lately of someone with a mole———?
"You fortunately see our city with a fresh mantle of snow, Tamara," the
Princess said, glancing from the automobile window as they sped along.
"It is not, alas! always so white as this."
It appeared wonderful to Tamara—so quite unlike anything she had imagined. The tiny sleighs seemingly too ridiculously small for the enormously padded coachmen on the boxes—the good horses with their sweeping tails—the unusual harness. And, above all, again the silence caused by the snow.
Her first remark was almost a childish one of glee and appreciation, and then she stopped short. What would her godmother think of such an outburst! She must return to the contained self-repression of the time before her visit to the Sphinx—surely in this strange land!