The society now began to chaff him as to his doings, which he took with the utmost sang froid.
"That old cat of a Marianne Mariuski sets about as usual one of her stories. I am having an orgie at Milasláv, and this time with a seraglio of Egyptian houris—the truth being I only brought back by the merest chance one small troupe of Alexandrian dancers, and two performing bears. They made us laugh for three days, Serge, Sasha, and the rest!"
"Gritzko, will you never learn wisdom," said one lady, the Princess Shébanoff, plaintively, while the others all laughed. "Were they pretty, and what were they like?" they asked.
"The bears?—little angels, especially Fatima,—and with the manners of Princesses," and he bowed to an old lady who was surveying him severely through her pince-nez, while she held her cards awry. "Which reminds me we are failing in ours, Tantine, you have not presented me to the English lady, who is, I perceive, a stranger."
During all this Tamara had sat cold and silent. She was angry with herself that this man's entrance should cause her such emotion—or rather commotion and sensation. Why should he make her feel nervous and stupid, unsure of herself, and uncertain what to do. Invariably he placed her at some disadvantage, and left the settling of their relations to himself. Whereas all such regulations ought to have been in her hands. Now she was without choice again, she could only bow stiffly as her godmother said his name and her name, and Prince Milaslávski took a chair by her side and began making politenesses as though he were really a stranger.
Had she just arrived? Did she find Russia very cold? Was she going to stay long? etc., etc.
To all of which Tamara answered in monosyllables, while two bright spots of rose color burned in her cheeks.
The Prince was astonishingly good looking in his Cossack's uniform, and his eyes had a laugh in them, but a shadow round as if bed had not seen him for several nights.
His whole manner to Tamara was different from any shade it had formerly worn. It was as if a courtly Russian were welcoming an honored guest in his aunt's house.
He did not mock or tease, or announce startling truths; he was pleasant and ordinary and serene.