in the near future--a dear old friend to frolic with in the immediate
present, and the problematic joys of a possible affair to be indulged
in meanwhile. No wonder he was in the best of spirits, and when Tamara,
without _arrière pensée_, took the empty place at his side, he
bent over her and filled her plate with the thinnest ham he had been
able to cut, with all the apparent air of a devoted lover. And if she
had looked up she would have seen that the Prince suddenly had begun to
watch her with a fierceness in his eyes.

"This is a jolly place," Jack Courtray said. He had just the faintest
lisp, which sounded rather attractive, and Tamara, after the storms and
emotions of the past few days, found a distinct pleasure and rest in
his obviousness.

It is an ill wind which blows no one any good, for presently the Prince
turned and devoted himself to Tatiane Shébanoff.

She was quite the prettiest of all this little clique, petite and fair
and sweet. Divorced from a brute of a husband a year or so ago, and now
married to an elderly Prince.

And she loved Gritzko with passion, and while she was silent about it,
her many friends told him so.

For his part he remained unconcerned, and sometimes troubled himself
about her, and sometimes not.

And so the evening wore on, and apparently it had no distinct sign that
it was to be one of the finger-posts of fate.