"We are so far away that you do not even imagine us," she said. "You English have read that there was an Ivan the Terrible and a Peter the Great, who crushed through your Evelyn's hedges, and was a giant of seven foot high! Many of you believe wolves prowl in the streets at night, and that among the highest society Nihilists stalk, disguised as heaven knows what! While the sudden disappearance of a member of any great or small family can be accounted for by a nocturnal visit of police, and a transportation in chains to Siberian mines! Is it not so, Tamara?"
Tamara laughed. "Yes, indeed," she said. "I am sure that is what Aunt
Clara thinks now! Are we not a ridiculously insular people, Marraine?"
She said the last word timidly and put out her hand. "May I call you Marraine, Princess?" she asked. "I never knew my mother, and it sounds nice."
"Indeed, yes!" the Princess said, and she rose and kissed Tamara. "Your mother was very dear to me, long ago, before you were born, we spent a wild season together of youth and happiness. You shall take the place of my child Tamara, if she had lived."
Before they had finished drinking their tea, other guests came in—a tall old General in a beautiful uniform, and two ladies, one young and the other old. They all spoke English perfectly, and were so agreeable and sans façon, Tamara's first impression was distinctly good.
Presently she heard the elder lady say to her godmother:
"Have you seen Gritzko since his return, Vera? One hears he has a wild fit on and is at Milasláv with———" the rest of the words were almost whispered. Tamara found herself unpleasantly on the alert—how ridiculous, though, she thought—Gritzko!—there might be a dozen Gritzkos in Petersburg.
"No, he returns tonight," Princess Ardácheff said; "but I never listen to these tales, and as no matter what he does we all forgive him, and let him fly back into our good graces as soon as he purses up that handsome mouth of his—it is superfluous to make critiques upon his conduct—it seems to me!"
The lady appeared to agree to this, for she laughed, and they talked of other things, and soon all left.
And when they were gone—"Tonight I have one or two of my nicest friends dining," the Princess said, "whom I wish you to know, so I thought if you rested now you would not be too tired for a little society," and she carried Tamara off to her warm comfortable bedroom, an immense apartment in gorgeous Empire taste, and here was a great bunch of roses to greet her, and her maid could be seen unpacking in the ante-chamber beyond.