"You fortunately see our city with a fresh mantle of snow, Tamara," the Princess said, glancing from the automobile window as they sped along.

"It is not, alas! always so white as this."

It appeared wonderful to Tamara--so quite unlike anything she had imagined. The tiny sleighs seemingly too ridiculously small for the enormously padded coachman on the boxes--the good horses with their sweeping tails--the unusual harness. And, above all, again the silence caused by the snow.

Her first remark was almost a childish one of glee and appreciation, and then she stopped short. What would her G.o.dmother think of such an outburst! She must return to the contained self-repression of the time before her visit to the Sphinx--surely in this strange land!

The Princess Ardacheff's frank face was illuminated with a smile.

"She is extremely young," she thought, "in spite of her widowhood, but I like her, and I know we shall be friends."

Just then they arrived at her house in the Serguiefskaia. It had not appeared to Tamara that they were approaching any particularly fashionable quarter. A fine habitation seemed the neighbor of quite a humble one, and here there was even a shop a few doors down, and except for the very tall windows there was nothing exceptionally imposing on the outside. But when they entered the first hall and the gaily-liveried suisse and two footmen had removed their furs, and the Princess' snow boots, then Tamara perceived she was indeed in a glorious home.

Princess Ardacheff's house was, and is, perhaps the most stately in all Petersburg.

As they ascended the enormous staircase dividing on the first landing, and reaching the surrounding galleries above in two sweeps, a grave major-domo and more footmen met them, and opened wide the doors of a lofty room. It was full of fine pictures and objets d'art, and though the furniture dated from the time of Alexander II., and even a little earlier--when a flood of frightful taste pervaded all Europe--still the stuffs and the colors were beautiful and rich, and time had softened their crudity into a harmonious whole.

Be the decorations of a house what they will, it is the mistress of it who gives the rooms their soul. If hers is vulgar, so will the rooms be, even though Monsieur Nelson himself has but just designed them in purest Louis XVI. But the worst of all are those which look as though their owner constantly attended bazaars, and brought the superfluous horrors she secured there back with her. Then there are vapid rooms, and anaemic rooms, and fiddly, and messy rooms, and there are monuments of wealth with no individuality at all.

Tamara felt all these _nuances_ directly, and she knew that here dwelt a woman of natural refinement and a broad outlook.

She sank into an old-fashioned sofa, covered with silk a quarter of an inch thick, and the atmosphere seemed to breathe life and completeness.

Tea and quant.i.ties of different little _bonnes bouches_ awaited them.

But if there was a samovar she did not recognize it as such; in fact, she had seen nothing which many writers describe as "Russian."

The Princess talked on in a fashion of perfect simplicity and directness. She told her that her friends would all welcome her and be glad that an Englishwoman should really see their country, and find it was not at all the grotesque place which fancy painted it.

"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 facon_, Tamara's first impression was distinctly good.

Presently she heard the elder lady say to her G.o.dmother:

"Have you seen Gritzko since his return, Vera? One hears he has a wild fit on and is at Milaslav 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 Ardacheff 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 anti-chamber beyond.

The company, ten or twelve of them, were all a.s.sembled when Tamara reached one of the great salons, which opened from the galleries surrounding the marble hall. She came in--a slender willowy creature, with a gentle smile of contrition--was she late?

And then the presentations took place. What struck her first was that dark or fair, fat-faced or thin, high foreheads or low, all the ladies wore _coiffees_ exactly the same--the hair brushed up from the forehead and tightly _ondules_. It gave a look of universal distinction, but in some cases was not very becoming. They were beautifully dressed in mourning, and no one seemed to have much of a complexion, from an English point of view, but before the end of the evening Tamara felt she had never met women with such charm. Surely no other country could produce the same types, perfectly simple in manner--perfectly at ease.

Extremely highly educated, with a wide range of subjects, and a knowledge of European literature which must be unsurpa.s.sed. Afterwards when she knew them better she realized that here was one place left in Europe where there were no _parvenues_ and no sn.o.bs--or if there were any, they were beautifully concealed. Such absolute simplicity and charm can only stay in a society where no one is trying "to arrive,"

all being there naturally by birth. There could be no room for the _metier_ adopted by several impecunious English ladies of t.i.tle--that of foisting anyone, however unsuitable, upon society and their friends for a well-gilded consideration.

In Russia, at least, it is the round peg in the round hole. No square peg would have a chance of admission. Thus there are the ease and elegance of one large and interesting family.

It seemed to Tamara that each one was endowed with natural fascination.

They made no "frais" for her. There were no compliments or gushing welcomes. They were just casual and delightful and made her feel at home and happy with them all.

They took "Zacouska" in an ante-room. Such quant.i.ties of strange dishes! There seemed enough for a whole meal, and Tamara wondered how it would be possible to eat anything further! At dinner she sat between a tall old Prince and a diplomat. The uniforms pleased her and the glorious pearls of the ladies. Such pearls--worth a king's ransom!

Then she was interested to see the many different sorts of wine, and the extreme richness of the food, and finally the shortness of the meal.

The pretty custom of the men kissing the hostess' hand as they all left the dining-room together, she found delightful.

They were drinking coffee in the blue salon, and most of the party had retired to the bridge tables laid out, and Tamara, who played too badly, sat by the fire with her G.o.dmother and another lady, when suddenly the door opened and, with an air of complete insouciance and a.s.surance, Prince Milaslavski came in.

"I want some coffee, Tantine," he said, kissing the Princess' hand, while he nodded to everyone else. "I was pa.s.sing and so came in to get it."

"Gritzko--back again!" the whole company cried, and the Princess, beaming upon him fond smiles, gave him the coffee, while she murmured her glad welcome.

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 Milaslav, 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 Shebanoff, 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 G.o.dmother said his name and her name, and Prince Milaslavski 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.

He and the Princess Ardacheff were no real blood relations; the first wife of her late husband had been his mother's sister, but the tradition of aunt had gone on in the family and the Princess loved him almost as a son. He had always called her "Tantine" as though she had been his real aunt.

"What did you think of Gritzko Milaslavski, Tamara?" she asked, when all the guests were gone, and the two had retired to Tamara's room. "He is one of the dearest characters when you know him--but a terrible tease."

"He seemed very pleasant," Tamara said blankly, while she picked up a book. Even to speak of him caused her unease.

"He is not at all the type of an ordinary Russian," the Princess continued. "He has traveled so much, he is so _fin_ there is almost a French touch in him. I am afraid you will find our young men rather dull as a rule. They are very hard worked at their military duties, and have not much time for _les dames du monde_."