It was all too terrible and too vulgarly melodramatic, Tamara thought,
especially that touching of the woman and that flinging of the gold,
the latter caused by the same barbaric instinct which made him throw
the silver in the Sheikh's village by the moonlit Sphinx, only this was
worse a thousandfold.

The next morning the two ladies left the ship at Brindisi before
either the Prince or Stephen Strong was awake. Both were silent upon
the subject of the night before, until Millicent at last said when they
were in the train:

"Tamara--you won't tell Henry or your family, will you, dear? Because
really, last night he was so fascinating--but that dancing! I am sure
you feel, with me, we could have died of shame."




CHAPTER VI


When Tamara reached Underwood and saw a letter from her Russian
godmother among the pile which awaited her, she felt it was the finger
of fate, and when she read it and found it contained not only New
Year's wishes, but an invitation couched in affectionate and persuasive
terms that she should visit St. Petersburg, she suddenly, and without
consulting her family, decided she would go.

"There is something drawing me to Russia," she said to herself. "One