"Charming lady!" said Stephen Strong. "Yes, indeed you do not know the
world."

Tamara was not angry. She looked at him and smiled, showing her
beautiful teeth.

"Of course you think me a goose," she said, "but I warned you I was
one. Tell me, shall I ever grow out of it--tell me, you who know?"

"If the teacher is young and handsome enough to make your heart beat,"
said her old companion. And then Millicent and the Prince joined them.

Mrs. Hardcastle's round blue eyes were flashing brightly, and her fresh
face was aglow with exercise and enjoyment.

"Tamara dear, you are too incorrigibly lazy. Why do you sit here
instead of taking exercise? and you have no idea of the interesting
things the Prince has been telling me. All about a Russian poet
called--oh, I can't pronounce the name, but who wrote of a devil--not
exactly Faust, you know, though something like it."

Tamara noticed that amused, whimsical, mocking gleam in the Cossack's
great eyes, but Millicent went gaily on, unconscious of anything but
herself.

"I mean those mythical, strange sort of devils who come to earth, you
know, and--and--make love to ladies--a sort of Satan like in Marie
Corelli's lovely book. You remember, Tamara, the one you were so funny
about, laughing when you read it."