"I have been reading up the guide books, so as to be thoroughly learned and teach Jack—he is so terribly ignorant always, worse than Tom!" and she laughed.
"We must try and see the whole show, and if the snow lasts, as it promises to do, we should have a delightful time."
"Gritzko," Princess Ardácheff said. "How many versts is it from Moscow to Milasláv?"
The Prince had been leaning on the mantelpiece without speaking for some moments, listening to Tamara's conversation, but now he joined in, and sinking into a chair beside her, answered from there.
"Thirty versts, Tantine—we shall go in troikas—but you must send your servants on the night before."
Then he turned to Tamara, who seemed wonderfully absorbed, almost whispering to Stephen Strong. "Did you sleep well, Madame?" he said. There was an expression of mocking defiance in his glance, which angered Tamara. However, faithful to her resolutions, she kept herself calm.
"Never better, thank you, Prince. It was a most interesting evening, and I am learning the customs of the country," she said. "The thing which strikes me most is your wonderful chivalry to women—especially strange women."
They looked into one another's eyes and measured swords, and if she had known it she had never so deeply attracted him before.
She had broached the subject of her return to England to her godmother, who had laughed the idea to scorn, but now she spoke to Gritzko as if it were an established fact.
"I go home from Moscow, you know," she said.