The Hippodrome | Page 5

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 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 naïve 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 déjeuner? 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 cafés, 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