The Hippodrome | Page 4

de diable. Her beauty was that of line and
modelling. Her quietness was partly the result of a convent education.
An old Irish nun had told her once that good looks were a snare and a
delusion of the Devil, and that hers would never bring her happiness.
At least they had got her an engagement, and a circus had always
represented to her the 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