"The Cossacks had a wild strain in them even in those days," he said.
"You must not be too hard on me for merely riding my horse!"
"Would you be cruel like that, too, Prince?" Tamara asked; and she sat down for a second on the arm of a carved chair. And when he had put the sword back in its place, he bent forward and leaned on the back of it.
"Yes, I could be cruel, I expect," he said. "I could be even brutal if I were jealous, or the woman I loved played me false, but I would not be cruel to her while it hurt myself. Razin lost his pleasure for days through one mad personal act. It would have been more sensible to have kept her until he was tired of her, or she had grown cold to him. Don't you agree with me about that?"
"It is a horrible history and I hate it," Tamara said. "Such ways I do not understand. For me love means something tender and true which could never want to injure the thing it loved."
He looked at her gravely.
"Lately I have wondered what love could mean for me. Tell me what you think, Madame," he said.
She resolved not to allow any emotion to master her, though she was conscious of a sudden beating of her heart.
"You would torture sometimes, and then you would caress."
"I would certainly caress."
He moved from his position and walked across the room, while he talked as though the words burst from him.