"Gritzko, you must tell Mrs. Loraine how these gipsies are, and what
she will hear--she will think it otherwise so strange."

He turned to Tamara at once.

"They are a queer people who dwell in a clan. They sing like the
fiend--one hates it or loves it, but it gets on the nerves, and if a
man should fancy one of them, he must pay the chief, not the girl. Then
they are faithful and money won't tempt them away. But if the man makes
them jealous, they run a knife into his back."

"It sounds exciting at all events," Tamara said.

"It is an acquired taste, and if you have a particularly sensitive ear
the music will make you feel inclined to scream. It drives me mad."

"Gritzko," the Princess whispered to him. "You promise to be _sage_,
dear boy, do you not? Sometimes you alarm me when you go too far."

"Tantine!" and he kissed her hand. "Your words are law!"

"Alas! if that were only true," she said with a sigh.

"Tonight all shall be suited to the eleven thousand virgins!" and he
laughed. "Or shall I say suited to an English _grande dame_--which is
the same!"

They had crossed the Neva by now, and presently arrived at a building
with a gloomy looking door, and so to a dingy hall, in which a few
waiters were scurrying about. They seemed to go through endless shabby