The Hippodrome Part 12

"Don't tell lies, Fatalite!" he said sharply. "Give me your hand at once."

Arith.e.l.li obeyed, holding it out palm upwards.

Emile looked, and ripped out a fiery exclamation. The smooth flesh was scarred and torn across in several places, and was still bleeding. The mark of Sobrenski's grip on her wrist had turned from crimson to a dull discoloured hue.

"It doesn't hurt so very much," she said. "Only I can't bear the sight of blood. All Jewish people are like that. I can't help it. It makes me feel queer all over."

She turned her head aside with a shudder. Emile muttered another expletive, adding:

"Then if you feel like that, don't look."

He told her again to sit down, tore her handkerchief into strips, soaked them in water from a carafe, and bandaged up the wounds in a rough but effectual fas.h.i.+on.

She said nothing during the process, but kept her head still turned away so that he could not see her face.

"Voila!" said Emile. "That will be all right to-morrow. What did they do to you?"

"I cut my fingers on the window sill when they let me down. There was a piece of iron or a nail or something. I don't remember. It didn't hurt at the time."

"H'm!" commented Emile. "But this?" he touched her wrist lightly. "It looks like--"

"That? Oh, Sobrenski did that. He--"

"Well?" said Emile. He waited but there came no answer, so he continued the interrogation. "You didn't make a scene, Fatalite?"

He heard her flinch and draw in her breath as she covered her face with her free hand. Her low painful sobbing reminded him of the inarticulate moaning of an animal.

Even in her grief, her abandonment, she was unlike all other women.

Emile stood beside her in watchful silence, and neither attempted to interfere nor to console her. He was wise enough to know that to a highly strung nature like hers too much self-repression might be dangerous, and he was humane enough to be glad that she had the relief of tears.

At length he said quietly, "I didn't know you could cry, Fatalite. I didn't know you were human enough for that."

She still fought desperately for composure, thrusting a fold of the torn _velo_ between her teeth. The naked light shone on her bent head, and on her glittering rope of hair.

A strange impulse suddenly moved Emile to finger a loose strand with a touch that had in it something of a caress.

Gamin she had been, _equestrienne_, heroine, and now she was only a sorrowful Dolores.

At last words came.

She stood up and faced him, shaking back her hair.

"Emile! Emile! I must give it up. I can't go on!"

"And you can't turn back, _mon enfant_."

"I'll run away."

"Do you think they wouldn't find you? You know enough about our organisation now. No one who has once joined us is ever allowed to escape. You would be found sooner or later, and then--you remember what I told you once? That I am responsible for you to the Brotherhood?"

He spoke calmly, patiently, as if he were explaining things to a child.

If his a.s.sociates could have seen the cynical Emile Poleski of ordinary life they would have found reason to marvel!

The gesture of uncontrollable horror told him that she understood only too well. What should the upholders of the Cause care for ties, for friends.h.i.+ps, for pity?

If she were recaptured Emile would be her executioner. He might refuse, but that would not save her and he would be shot as well. Why should he suffer because she had lost her courage and turned traitress?

She tried to collect her senses, and to think properly. Everything felt blurred and far off. One thing alone seemed certain--that there was no way out of the _impa.s.se_.

Emile had walked to the gla.s.s-door and unlocked it. Then he came back to her.

"It's time we were going," he said. "It will not do to be here too long. As our friend the spy is patrolling the street outside in readiness for my appearance, we will go out the other way. The Calle Santa Teresa is nearly always deserted. It's just as well you should be seen with me. They don't know yet that you are working for us, so it will look less as if I were _en route_ for a meeting. But before we start, have you decided to be wise and to save me from an unpleasant duty?"

"Yes. I'll stay. At least while you are here."

"While I am here?" the man echoed. "Et alors--?"

"Then?" She threw out her arms in a hopeless gesture. "Who knows?

Who can read the future? And after all, as you have said, 'What does one life more or less matter?'"

CHAPTER IX

"Ninon, Ninon, que fais-tu de la vie!"

DE MUSSET.

Arith.e.l.li awoke next day in her comfortless room, and lay wondering over the waking nightmare of the past hours. Everything seemed so different in the morning. There was no thrill of excitement now, nothing to make her blood run quickly. She only felt flat, dull, stupid, and disinclined to move. How strange and unlike himself Emile had been. She had lost her nerve, raved, and threatened to run away, and he had neither sneered nor abused her. Her hand, still wrapped in stained linen, had now begun to burn and smart considerably, and was proof sufficient of the reality of her experience. Her spine and the soles of her feet tingled as she lived again through the horror of the descent from the window. She could never endure a repet.i.tion of that ordeal. Next time she would refuse and they could add one more murder to the list of their crimes.

She dragged herself up and dressed slowly. She remembered that there was to be a gala performance at the Hippodrome that night in honour of the presence of one of the Infantas, her husband and suite, who were pa.s.sing through the town, and had announced their intention of being present. For all the performers it meant more work and an extra rehearsal.

When Emile came in they shared their coffee and rolls together. She was thankful that he made no reference to her pa.s.sionate outburst of the night before. He was outwardly as curt and dictatorial as ever, and neither of them discussed the affairs of the Brotherhood.

"I must go down to practise," Arith.e.l.li said after a while. "Shall you be there to-night? You know there is to be a grand performance in honour of the loyalties?"

"No," answered Emile, "I shall be busy. Besides, the Royalties will be safer if I'm _not_ there! We don't trouble ourselves about these particular ones though. They're not important enough."

"I'm sorry you're not coming," Arith.e.l.li answered.

Emile ungratefully disregarded the implied compliment, and threw out a blunt, "Why?"

"I don't quite know. I think there is going to be something unlucky."

"You're going to tumble off, you mean? Better not! You don't want to get turned out, do you?"