"I feel it is my duty to learn to play better," Tamara said, "so I am going to watch."
He put down his hand and seized her wrist. "You shall certainly not," he said. "You cannot be so rude as deliberately to controvert your host. It is my pleasure that you shall sit here and talk."
His eyes were flashing, and Tamara's spirit rose.
"What a savage you are, Prince," she laughed. "Everything must be only as you wish! That I want to watch the bridge does not enter into your consideration."
"Well, then, since I must stay here I shall be disagreeable and not say a word."
And she sat down primly and folded her hands.
He lit a cigarette, and she noticed his hand trembled a little, but his voice was quite steady, and in fact low as he said:
"I tell you frankly, if you go on treating me as you have done today, whatever happens is on your head."
"Do you mean to strangle me then?--or have me torn up by dogs?" and Tamara smiled provokingly. With all the others in the room, and almost within earshot, she felt perfectly safe.
She had suffered so much, it seemed good to oppose him a little, when it could not entail a duel with some unoffending man!
"I do not know yet what I shall be impelled to do, only I warn you, if you tease me, you will pay the price." And he puffed a cloud of smoke.
"He can do nothing tonight," Tamara thought, "and tomorrow we are going back to Moscow, and then I am returning home." A spirit of devilment was in her. Nearly always it had been he who regulated things, and now it was her turn. She had been so very unhappy, and had only the outlook of dullness and regret. Tonight she would retaliate, she would do as she felt inclined.
So she leaned back in her chair and smiled, making a tantalizing moue at him, while she said, mockingly:
"Aren't you a barbarian, Prince! Only the days of Ivan the Terrible are over, thank goodness!"
He took a chair and sat down quietly, but the tone of his voice should have warned her as he said:
She peeped at him now through half-closed alluring lids, and she noticed he was very pale.
In her quiet, well-ordered life she had never come in contact with real passion. She had not the faintest idea of the vast depths she was stirring. All she knew was she loved him very much, and the whole thing galled her pride horribly. It seemed a satisfaction, a salve to her wounded vanity, to be able to make him feel, to punish him a little for all her pain.