The Hippodrome | Page 5

well, I'll write and let them know, and if not--"
"Alors?"
"Oh, I don't know. But I will get on. Don't you think I ought to make a success at the Hippodrome?"
Emile ignored the na?ve conceit of the last remark. "But what are you doing at the Hippodrome at all?" he demanded.
"I am riding," she answered with an elfish smile in which her eyes took no part.
"Obviously! What are you going to do about d��jeuner? The landlady won't bring you up all your meals."
"I don't know," was the unconcerned answer.
"You'll have to go to one of the caf��s, and you had better let me show you which are the most desirable ones. Enfin! have you any intention of getting up this morning?"
Arithelli yawned again. "I suppose I must go round and present myself to the Manager. I'm to rehearse a fortnight before I make my appearance in public."
"Then I had better come with you," Emile replied with decision. "As I told you yesterday, I know the Manager fairly well."
An hour later they walked together through the streets on their way to the Hippodrome. Emile was a bad advertisement for the secrecy of his profession, for he looked a typical desperado. His velvet coat had the air of having been slept in for weeks, and had certainly never been on terms of acquaintanceship with a brush; and, besides the usual Anarchist badge, a red tie, a blood red carnation flamed defiance in his buttonhole.
Under a battered sombrero he scowled upon the world; a dark skin, fierce moustache, and arching black eyebrows over hard, grey eyes.
There are few people who look their parts in life, but Emile might without addition or alteration, have been transferred to the stage as the typical villain of a melodrama.
Arithelli had arrayed herself in the cornflower blue frock, which she carried with a negligent ease, and she still wore the Panama hat with the flowing veil. As a matter of fact it was the only piece of headgear she possessed; for she had been reckless over dresses and boots in Paris and had found herself drawn up with a jerk in the midst of her purchases by her small stock of money coming to an abrupt end.
Of her carriage and general deportment, which were noticeably good even among Spanish women, Emile approved. The crude blue of her dress, the tags and ends of tinselled braid set his teeth on edge. In his "Count Poleski" days he had known the quiet and exquisite taste of the mondaines of Vienna and St. Petersburg, and like most men he preferred dark clothes in the street. Later on he proposed to himself the pleasure of supervising her wardrobe, except her boots, which met with his fullest approbation.
He noticed that she did not talk much but observed in silence. He felt that nothing escaped those heavy-lidded, curious eyes. "Is everything dirty in Spain?" she said at last.
"How fussy you are about dirt!" retorted Emile disagreeably.
"Yes. My mother is a Jewess, you know. I expect we notice these things more than the dirty Gentiles."
Her calm assertion of the superior cleanliness of the tribe of Israel, amused Emile, who had been accustomed to hear the usual contempt of the English-speaking races for anyone possessing a strain of Jewish blood. So it was the Jewess in her that accounted for her haunting voice.
The Manager was a hatchet-faced and haggard man who looked as if he went to bed about once a week, on an average, and existed principally on cigarettes and absinthe. The simultaneous arrival of Emile and Arithelli roused him from his normal condition of bored cynicism to comparative animation.
Like the landlady he naturally made his own conclusions.
"When did you arrive?" he demanded of Arithelli. Emile, not being afflicted with a sense of the necessity for elaborate explanation, removed himself a few paces and began to roll a cigarette.
Arithelli stood her ground, listened to the comments on her appearance which the Manager felt himself entitled to use, returned his cynical survey with a level glance, and answered his questions with an unruffled composure.
It was arranged that she should rehearse every day for two hours in the morning, and another two hours between the afternoon and evening performances. For the first act she could wear a habit of any colour she cared to choose, and a smart hat; for the second act, which included jumping over gates, and the presence of the inevitable clown, she would have to wear short skirts.
"They won't suit me," she said. "You see how long and thin I am, and look at my long feet. I shall look a burlesque."
The Manager glared at her.
"I quite believe you will," he snapped. "I suppose you think you're going to do the leaping act in a court train and feathers! Is there anything more you