They seemed to go through several sheet-shrouded salons and came out into a thoroughly comfortable room. Its general aspect of decoration had a Byzantine look, and on the floor were several magnificent bear skins, while around the walls low bookcases with quantities of books stood. And above them many arms were crossed. Over the mantelpiece a famous Rembrandt frowned, and another from the opposite wall. But it was strange there were no photographs of dancers or actresses about as Tamara would have thought.
The Prince talked intelligently. He seemed to know of such things as pictures, and understood their technique. And if he had been an elderly art critic he could not have been more aloof.
Presently Tamara noticed underneath the first picture there was hung a quaint sword. Something in its shape and workmanship attracted her attention, and she asked its history.
The Prince took it down and placed it in her hand.
"That sword belonged to a famous person," he said--"a Cossack--Stenko Razin was his name--a robber and a brigand and a great chief. He loved a lady, a Persian Princess whom he had captured, and one day when out on his yacht on the Volga, being drunk from a present of brandy some Dutch travellers had brought him, he clasped her in his arms. She was very beautiful and gentle and full of exquisite caresses, and he loved her more than all his wealth. But mad thoughts mounted to his brain, and after making an oration to the Volga for all the riches and plunder she had brought him, he reproached himself that he had never given this river anything really valuable in return, and then exclaiming he would repair his fault, unclasped the clinging arms of his mistress and flung her overboard."
"What a horrible brute!" exclaimed Tamara, and she put down the sword.
The Prince took it up and drew it from its sheath.
"The Cossacks had a wild strain in them even in those days," he said. "You must not be too hard on me for merely riding my horse!"
"Would you be cruel like that, too, Prince?" Tamara asked; and she sat down for a second on the arm of a carved chair. And when he had put the sword back in its place, he bent forward and leaned on the back of it.
"Yes, I could be cruel, I expect," he said. "I could be even brutal if I were jealous, or the woman I loved played me false, but I would not be cruel to her while it hurt myself. Razin lost his pleasure for days through one mad personal act. It would have been more sensible to have kept her until he was tired of her, or she had grown cold to him. Don't you agree with me about that?"