The Hippodrome | Page 4

very height of romance.
She wondered how she could manage for money till she got her five pounds next Friday. It was lucky that all her habits, and so on, were provided by the management. She wished to-morrow would arrive, for she felt eager to begin work, and see the horses. She had quite forgotten all about Emile's promised visit, and was just pulling down the rest of her hair preparatory to getting ready for bed, when he walked in without any preliminary knock.
"How are you getting on? All right?" Then after a momentary inspection of the many garments that festooned the dirty walls, he added: "I don't think you've got very good taste in clothes!"
CHAPTER II
"All women are good; good for something, or good for nothing." CERVANTES.
The next morning Emile made his entrance with the same complete disregard of ceremony. Arithelli was still in bed and only half awake. She raised herself slightly and looked at him with sleepy eyes.
"Oh!" she said. "I didn't hear you knock."
There was the same entire lack of embarrassment in her manner that she had shown on the previous night. Almost before she had finished her sentence she shut her eyes again, and leant back yawning. It seemed a matter of the greatest indifference to her whether he was there or not. Emile's interest rose by several degrees as he sat down on the edge of the bed.
"I didn't knock," he said, speaking English fluently enough, but with the hard, clipped accents of the Slav. "I can't bother about all that humbug. If you're straight with me I'll be straight with you, and we may as well be friends. I dare say you think you're very good-looking and all that, but it doesn't make any difference to me. You're here, and I'm here, so we may as well be here together."
"I'm so sorry," Arithelli replied, "but I'm always so stupid and sleepy in the mornings. Do you mind saying it all over again?"
And very much to his own surprise Emile Poleski repeated his remarks. It struck him that there was something of the boy, the gamin, about her in spite of her exotic appearance. That was so much the better and would suit admirably with his schemes for her. It was better that she should not be too much of a woman; for in the realms of anarchy there is no sex, though comradeship is elevated to the dignity of a fine art.
For chivalry and love making there is neither the time nor the desire, and those who are wedded to La Liberté find her an all-sufficient idol for purposes of worship. Human life is held of small account, to join the Cause being equivalent to the signing of one's own death warrant. One would probably have to die to-morrow if not to-day, and whether it were sooner or later mattered little. Emile's fierce devotion to the cause of his oppressed country had been the means of leaving him stranded in Barcelona at the age of forty, without hopes, illusions or ideals. His estates in Russia had been confiscated, his parents were dead, the woman he had loved was married.
Now he lived in a dirty back street, in a single room, on two pounds a week, morbid, suspicious, cynical, keeping his own counsel, owning no friends, and occupying body and brain with plots, secret meetings, ciphers and the usual accompaniments of intrigue. The Brotherhood consisted of fifteen men, though occasionally the number varied. Two or three would disappear, another one come. There was no feminine element. An Anarchist seldom marries. To him a woman is either a machine or the lightest of light episodes.
Emile had not the least desire to make love to the girl whom he had for his own purposes befriended. He was a quick and subtle judge of character, and had seen at a glance that in her he would find a study of pronounced interest. Also she might prove of some utility. It was one of the tenets of the fraternity to which he belonged never to waste any material that might come to hand. In the finely-cut face before him, with its Oriental modelling and impassivity, he read brains, refinement and endurance. Her hair was plaited in two long braids, and drawn down over her ears, showing the contour of a sleek, smooth little head.
She had relapsed into silence after disposing of the slovenly meal he had induced the landlady to provide. The only thing that seemed to worry her was the superfluous dirt that adorned the cups.
At length she spoke:
"And what sort of a place is this Barcelona?"
"L'entresol de l'enfer," answered Emile curtly. "What are your people doing to allow you to come here alone?"
"They don't know I am here. I ran away, you see. If I get on