bande_, and gathered round the high table, where they began to eat like
hungry natural people, selecting the dishes they wanted. Some of the
men taking immense spoonfuls of caviare, and spreading them on bread,
like children with jam. All were so joyous and so perfectly without
ceremony. Nothing could be more agreeable than this society, Tamara
thought.

Some of the men were elderly, and a number the husbands of the various
ladies; there were a few young officers and several diplomats from the
Embassies, too. But young or old, all were gay and ready to enjoy life.

"You must taste some vodka, Madame," Prince Milaslávski said, pouring a
small glass at Tamara's side. "You will not like it, but it is Russian,
and you must learn. See I take some, too, and drink your health!"

Tamara bowed and sipped the stuff, which she found very nasty, with a
whiff of ether in it. And then they all trouped to the large table in
this huge dining-hall.

Tamara sat on her host's right hand, and Princess Sonia on his left.

To-night his coat was brown and the underdress black, it was quite as
becoming as the others she had seen him in, with the strange belt and
gold and silver trimmings and the Eastern hang of it all, and his great
dark gray-blue eyes blazed at Tamara now and then with a challenge in
them she could hardly withstand.

"Now tell us, Gritzko, what did you do in Egypt this year?" Princess
Sonia said. "It is the first time that no histories of your ways have
come to our ears--were you ill?--or bored? We feared you were dead."