time.

Everything about it interested Tamara. The strange Cossack servants in
the hall; the splendid staircase of stone and marble, and then finally
they reached the salons above.

"One can see no woman lives here," she thought, though the one they
entered was comfortable enough. Huge English leather armchairs elbowed
some massively gilt seats of the time of Nicholas I., and an ugly
English high fender with its padded seat, surrounded the blazing log
fire.

The guests were all assembled, but host, there was not!

"What an impertinence to keep them waiting like this," Tamara thought!
However, no one seemed to mind but herself, and they all stood laughing
or sitting on the fender in the best of spirits.

"I will bet you," said Olga Gléboff, in her attractive voice, "that
Gritzko comes in with no apology, and that we shall none of us be able
to drag from him where he has been!"

As she spoke he entered the room.

"Ah! you are all very early," he said, shaking their hands in frank
welcome. "So good of you, dear friends. Perhaps I am a little late, you
will forgive me, I know; and now for Zacouska, a wolf is tearing at my
vitals, I feel, and yours too. It is nine o'clock!"

Then the dining-room doors at the side opened and they all went in _en