"Please tell me, Marraine," and poor Tamara sat up and pushed her hair
back.

"It appears, as far at I can gather, they all dined at the Fontonka
house--Boris Varishkine and Gritzko have always been great friends--and
at the end of dinner--Valonne imagines, because no one is sure what
took place between them at this stage--Gritzko, it is supposed, said to
Boris in quite an amiable way that he did not wish him to dance the
Mazurka with you, but to relinquish his right in his--Gritzko's--
favor."

She paused again, and Tamara's eyes fixed themselves in fascinated fear
on her face. The Princess, after smoothing out the glove in her hand
with a nervous energy, went on:

"They had all had quite enough champagne, of course, and apparently
Boris refused, and suggested that they should toss up, and whoever won
the toss should have first shot in the dark."

"Yes," said Tamara faintly.

"You know, dear, our boys are often very wild, and they have a game
they play when they are at the end of their tether for something to do
when quartered in some hopeless outpost--a kind of blind-man's-buff--
only it is all in the dark, and the blind man stands in the middle of
the room and the rest clap hands and then dodge, and he fires his
revolver at the point the sound seems to come from, and the object is
not to get shot. You may have noticed Sasha Basmanoff has no left
thumb? He lost it last year on just such a night."