"I don't think so," went on Tamara, while she stupidly blushed. "They all seem to be just merry friends, and the young ones don't go out very much. I don't mean the quite, quite young who dance with girls, but the young men. My godmother says they are very hard worked, and in their leisure they like to have dinners in their regiments—or at restaurants—with, with other sort of ladies, where they can do what they please. It seems a little elementary—don't you think so?"
"Jolly common-sense!" said Jack Courtray.
"And then, you see, if by chance, when they are in the world, if they do fall in love, it is possible for the lady to get a divorce here without any scandal and fuss, and the whole clan stick to their own member, no matter how much in the wrong she may be, and so all is arranged, and life seems much simpler and apparently happier than it is with us. If it is really so I cannot say, I have not been here long enough to judge."
"It sounds a kind of Utopia," and Lord Courtray laughed. And just then the Prince came into the room again, and over to them and they got up and the two men went off together to examine the foils.
Presently the band arrived and more guests, and soon the contre-danse was begun. That grown-up people could seriously take pleasure in this amazing romp was a new and delightful idea to Tamara.
It was a sort of enormous quadrille with numerous figures and farandole, while one sat on a chair between the figures, as at a cotillon. And toward the end the company stamped and cried, and the band sang, and nothing could have been more gay and exciting and wild.
Before they began, the Prince came up to Tamara and said:
"I want you to dance this with me. I have had it on purpose to show you a real Russian sight."
They had moved into the ballroom by then, which was now a blaze of light, while as if by magic the sheet coverings had been removed from the chairs.
And the Prince exerted himself to amuse and please his partner, and did not again clasp her too tight, only whenever she had turns with her countryman, his eyes would flame, and he would immediately interrupt them and carry her off.