Emile yawned and stretched, and pulled himself up slowly from the chair by the open window in which he had fallen asleep. He was cramped and stiff from his uncomfortable position. Anxiety and strain had deepened the lines on his face, and his eyes were dull and sunken. He looked less hard, less alert, and altogether more human and approachable.

A glance at the bed assured him that Arithelli was still asleep and in exactly the same attitude as he had left her. Though her sleep was not a natural one, at least it was better than drugs, and he had given her a respite, a time of forgetfulness. In a few minutes he would have to arouse her again to more pain and discomfort, and the inevitable weariness of convalescence. He stood inhaling the wonderful soft air and gathering up his energies to face the work of another day. Arithelli's affairs had to be put straight, and Vardri provided for in some way. He did not in the least know how this was all to be accomplished, and at present the problems of the immediate future seemed likely to prove a little difficult.

He was not by nature optimistic, and the events of the last few days had made him even less so than ordinary. He felt that he must go back to his rooms, and finish out his siesta before he could work out any more plans.

Arithelli awoke at once when he touched her and called her name, but before she had realised where she was Emile was half way downstairs in search of Maria.

As it happened it was Sunday morning, and being at least outwardly devout, the damsel was just on the point of starting for an early Mass, and was arrayed in her church-going uniform of black gown and velo, and armed with missal and rosary.

Her round eyes widened and her round mouth grew sulky when she heard that she was expected to go upstairs without further delay and attend to Arithelli. Juan would be waiting for her outside the church door, Maria reflected, and perhaps if she did not come he would seek others. There was Dolores, of the cigarette factory, for example. The English Senora could surely wait a few minutes. Her expression, and her obvious unwillingness, supplied Emile with material for cynical reflections upon the working value of religion. He did not trouble to communicate his views to Maria, but merely gave orders and instructions. His tone and manner were convincing. Like all the rest of her sex Maria respected a man who knew what he wanted, and showed that he intended to get it.

Emile made his way into the cool, shady Rambla, where a double avenue of plane trees met overhead, and where a grateful darkness could always be found even at mid-day. On either side of the promenade were the finest shops, the gaiest cafes. A band of students passed him, waving a scarlet flag and shouting a revolutionary chanson of the most fiery description. Emile scowled angrily. He had not the least sympathy with these childish exhibitions of defiance, which he considered utterly futile and a great waste of time. They did harm to the serious aims and intentions of the Anarchist community, and were often the means of getting quite the wrong people arrested.

At the Flower Market (La Rambla de las Flores) he paused to look at the heaped roses, gorgeous against the grey stones. Daily they were brought there in thousands, dew-drenched and fresh from the gardens of Saria. He took up a loose handful from the piled mass of sweetness and laid it down again.

Red roses were not for Fatalite. They would not suit her, and she had good reason to loathe the colour that was symbolical of blood and sacrifice. He chose instead a sheaf of lilies, long-stalked and heavily scented, and despatched them in the care of a picturesque gamin. Sobrenski and the others would certainly have considered him hopelessly mad if they had known. It was many years since he had sent flowers to a woman. His present life did not encourage little courtesies and graceful actions. It was in the natural course of events that all the comrades should help one another in every possible way, but none of them made any virtue out of it. It was all done in the most matter-of-fact way possible. As he had told Arithelli when they had talked up at Montserrat, one only kissed the hands of a Marie Spiridonova. And he was sending bouquets as to some mondaine of the vanished world and of his youth.

He shrugged and walked slowly on. In passing the house where Michael Furness lodged, he stopped to leave a message as to Arithelli's condition, and the advisability of another visit.

When "The Witch" touched at Corfu for letters Count Vladimir found among them one that twisted afresh the thread of two destinies—his own and that of a woman. His companion had still the same features and colouring of the boy who had sung at night under the stars in the harbour of Barcelona. Pauline Souvaroff still sang through the hours between dusk and dawn, but her disguise had been discarded, and now soft skirts trailed as she passed, and the cropped fair hair had grown and twisted into little rings. Her secret had been no secret to Emile, though Arithelli with her trick of taking everything for granted had never guessed that Paul, the singer, was other than the boy he professed to be. Besides the two women had never talked together alone, and seldom even seen each other by daylight, for Pauline had sought no one's company.

There was for her but one being in the world, and when she could not be with the man she worshipped she was content to be with her thoughts and dreams.

At first she had, like many another Russian woman, yearned to make an oblation of herself in the service of her horror-ridden country, but with the coming of love she had put aside all thoughts of vengeance. The Cause was identified for her with the person of her lover. She toiled willingly at it still, but from entirely different motives. His interests were hers, and while he worked for the revolutionary party, so also must she.

Pauline Souvaroff had loved much and given freely. All that she possessed of beauty and charm, her whole body and soul she had laid at the feet of the man at whose lightest word she flushed and paled, and on whom she looked with soft, adoring eyes. She lived in dreams, a life of drugged content in which there was neither past nor future.

In all the Brotherhood no one could be considered a free agent, and the ordering of no man's life was in his own hands. The private actions of each member were almost as well known as his public ones, for each man spied systematically upon his companions. If the devotion of two people to one another seemed likely to outrival their devotion to the Cause, then separation came swiftly. Nothing would be said, no accusations made, but each would receive orders that sent them in opposite directions. The supporters of the Red Flag movement were always particularly ingenious in arranging affairs to suit themselves. An Anarchist could form no lasting ties. Some time in the future there was always separation to be faced.

It was in Vladimir's power to settle matters in his own way by ignoring Emile's letter, and remaining where he was in enjoyment of the present idyll. As long as they kept out to sea they were safe. But he had pledged his word to answer any summons and to give his help, and with him, as with all men, love came only second to his work. Emile had also explained Vardri's position, and it would be impossible to adjust anything without being on the spot.

He read the letter over again, slowly and carefully. It hinted and suggested more than it had said. Emile had just come from an interview with Sobrenski, and there had been a talk of an entire re-organization of the band. Some of the members would be required to carry on the propaganda in other countries, Russia, for example. They all knew what that meant—!

As he climbed the ladder by the yacht's side, and swung himself onto the deck, the girl ran up to him with outstretched hands, her white skirts fluttering behind her in the wind. She was as incapable of disguising her feelings as a child, and she was a joyous pagan in her happiness.

Vladimir slipped his hand under the warm round arm. "Have I been long, petite? Come and walk up and down. I want to talk to you."

"You have found letters, mon ami?" Pauline asked carelessly.

"From Poleski. Yes. I'm afraid they are rather important ones. We shall have to talk them over later on."

"When you like. Vladimir, do you remember the girl Monsieur Poleski brought on board once for a few days. I never knew her real name. She always looked so ill and miserable. Do you remember?"

"It is about this very girl that he has written."

Pauline looked up quickly. "She is dead?"

"No! No! I suppose you think that because she always looked such a tragedy. However, she is very ill, out of danger now, but of course not able to ride—she was in the Hippodrome, you know—and apparently she has no money, so one must do something for them. Poleski has barely enough for two, especially under these circumstances."

"I am sorry," Pauline said gently. "I remember how she used to sit all day and look at the sea. Monsieur Poleski left her too much alone, and always spoke so roughly, but I think he loved her."

Vladimir gave a short laugh.

"You're wrong there, child. No, I'm sure that's not the case with Poleski."

"But she loves him?"

"Possibly! She always seemed to me uncanny with those extraordinary eyes, and that voice. Poleski has certainly failed to educate her as regards taste in clothes. You saw how she was dressed when she came on board—!"

Half an hour later the anchor was up, and they were cutting through the white-crested waves. The girl pointed to a green headland on the left that rose suddenly and overhung the water like a sentinel on guard.

"I have been watching that all the morning in the distance, and I could think of nothing but the Winged Victory in the Louvre. You remember how she stands on a rough-hewn pedestal at the head of the marble staircase, and she is all alone against a dull red background. And as one looks one goes back all those centuries, and sees her as she was on the day the Greeks set her up to celebrate their great sea-victory. It must have all looked just as it does to-day, those centuries ago in the Island of Samothrace. There was a strong wind blowing, and the waves met and raced and leapt together, and the sky was the same wonderful colour that it is now, and there were wild birds hovering and screaming round her."

"What will you say to me, when I take you away from all this,—when we have to go back to Barcelona?"

"But I shall go with you?" The blue eyes were searching his face, and there was fear as well as a question in them.

"Do you suppose I shall leave you here alone, child?" He hated himself for the evasive answer.

He turned her thoughts to other things, bidding her talk of those days they had spent together in Paris. She had named it Paradise, and to her it had been indeed a place of enchantment, for she saw it for the first time, and Vladimir was always with her.

She had seen its treasures of art, and abandoned herself to its glamour with the enthusiasm and the freshness of a child.

She had looked out of place in the artificial atmosphere of the boulevards, among the gas-lit cafes, dazzling shop-windows, flaneurs and gaily dressed women. A man who wrote poetry, and starved on what he received for his verses in the Quartier Latin, had stood beside her for a few moments in the Rue de Rivoli, and had gone home to his garret inspired to produce some lines in which he compared her to the delicate narcissus blooms that died so quickly in the flower sellers' baskets.

Together she and Vladimir had strolled among the wonders of the Louvre, he critical and unmoved, but indulgent and gratified at her pleasure as at the pleasure of a child.

Pauline had never been able to express what she felt. She could only worship dumbly before the changeless unfading beauty of these relics of the fairy-cities, of Athens, and Rome, and Alexandria. She had loved the Greek marbles best. The weird shapes in the Corridor of Pan, the glorious torso of the Venus Accroupie with the two deep lines in her side that make her more human and alive than any other Venus, more divine even than the Milo, faultless in her "serpentining beauty rounds on rounds," serene and gracious in the shadow of her crimson-hung alcove.

And Vladimir was wise, for he allowed her to dream, and did not show her more than he could help of modern Paris.

From there they had gone to Brussels, then to Vienna, and last, and most beautiful of all, Buda-Pesth, the city among the hills. They had seen it first of all as Buda-Pesth should be seen, at night, hanging between earth and sky, and with her million lights sparkling against the soft darkness of the surrounding hills. Pauline's eyes had never become satiated with the sight of beautiful things.

Perhaps, as she had told Vladimir, it was her love for him that had given her this gift of clear-seeing. Without love she might have allowed herself to be blindfolded as many other women are, by ambition, or money, or intellect.



CHAPTER XIV

"La vie est vaine, Un peu d'amour, Un peu de haine, Et puis bon jour."

In the process of Arithelli's convalescence, comedy fought for place with tragedy.

For the first time in her life she felt irritable, and inclined to grumble, and her racked nerves made the lonely hours appear doubly long and lonely.

Day after day, each one seemingly more unending than the last, the sun poured into her room, and the dust and litter accumulated in all four corners, and she lay and gazed at the hideous meandering pattern of the stained wall-paper, and the cracks and blistering paint on the door. The nights were less terrible, for the darkness veiled all sordid details, and there was a star-lit patch of sky visible through the open window.

The attendance she received could only be described as casual. Neither Emile nor Maria possessed one idea on the subject of hygiene between them. The methods of the former were, as might be expected, a little crude, and Maria combined a similar failing with a vast ignorance. Moreover, she was not original. At the beginning of Arithelli's illness pineapple juice had seemed to Maria a happy inspiration, and she continued to provide it daily. What was good to drink on Sunday, she argued, must also be good on Monday.

Arithelli's throat had healed quickly, but the depression and weakness clung to her persistently. She fought it and was ashamed of it, true to her Spartan traditions, but was forced to realise that it was not in her own power to hurry her return to the world and work.

Michael Furness, who was much elated by the success of the Jewish herbalist's remedy, continued his treatment on the same lines, giving her various tisanes of leaves and flowers, which if they tasted unpleasant were at least harmless. He had grown fond of his patient, and she always looked for his visits with pleasure. He treated her with a genuine, almost fatherly kindness, and they were drawn together by the kin feeling of race, so strong among all Celts. In many respects Michael was not ideal as a medical attendant.

He smoked vile tobacco,—he dropped some things and knocked over others, he shaved apparently only on festas, and if he happened to arrive late in the day his speech was thick and his manner excitable.

Upon one occasion Arithelli had complained that her mane of untended hair made her uncomfortably hot, and Michael brought out a pocket knife, clubbed it all together in his hand like a horse's tail, and obligingly offered to relieve her by cutting it off. Emile had arrived only just in time to prevent the holocaust, and the two men exchanged fiery words for the next ten minutes.

Another day, prompted by a desire to amuse her, Michael introduced into her room a fat mongrel puppy with disproportionate legs and an alarmed expression. His wish to provide her with what he was pleased to call a "divarsion" was, like many of his other good intentions, not entirely successful. He had deposited the excited animal on the bed, and in the course of its frantic gambols it overbalanced and fell sprawling to the floor on its back. The ancient canopied bed was high, and the puppy was frightened as well as hurt, and lifted up its voice in anguished yells. When Michael had rescued it, and put it outside the door and finished laughing, he came back to find Arithelli weeping helplessly with her face buried in the pillow. His alarmed suggestion that he should fetch Emile helped her to recover more quickly than any amount of sympathy could have done.

Sometimes there were other visitors. The grooms and strappers from the Hippodrome came often to enquire, and Estelle, forbidden by the Manager to come at all on account of infection, sat on the stairs and showered effusive speeches in a high-pitched voice through the open door.

Arithelli had sent no word of her illness to her parents in London. She knew their views on the subject of complaints. They would consider the whole thing due to imagination, there would be unpleasant letters, and it was perfectly certain that they would send no assistance in the shape of money. Emile had wished to write, but she had begged him not to do so, and for once he had yielded to what he called her "whims."

From the scraps of information she had received from time to time it appeared that the uncomfortable menage of her kindred had become even more disorganised. Her father had turned for consolation to the whisky of his country, her mother spent whole days in bed reading, and weaving futile dreams of a recovered fortune, and Isobel and Valerie grew taller and hungrier, and fought and wrangled after the manner of Hooligans. Lazy and shiftless, they envied Arithelli the life she had chosen, but had neither the pluck nor the brains necessary to emulate her example.

Emile's manner had troubled her of late, for he had been strangely bad-tempered and variable in his moods. She had become more or less accustomed to his eccentricities of behaviour and speech, but this was something different, indefinable. One day he would be extraordinarily kind and considerate, the next almost brutal, either hardly speaking at all, or else finding fault with everything she said and did.

She often felt a presentiment that he had something important to tell her, but he would come and go without imparting any news, and, as always, she did not worry him with questions as many women would have done.

She wondered if he were feeling harassed over "les affaires politiques," or whether he was afraid that the Manager's small stock of patience would be exhausted before she was able to appear in the ring again, and that he would cancel her contract. If that happened she felt that the end of all things would have indeed arrived. She could not struggle against the Fates any longer, obviously she could not return home, and it was not fair that Emile should continue to keep her.

He came in one evening about eight o'clock to find her up for the first time since her illness, and sitting on the edge of the bed draped in the long blue cloak she used for covering her circus attire.

Her hair was parted over her ears, and divided into two long sleek braids drawn forward and falling over her shoulders, the ends resting on her lap.

She looked up, as he entered, with the haunting sea-green eyes that showed larger than ever in contrast to her hollowed cheeks. Something in her pose, in the arrangement of her hair, reminded Emile vividly of her first morning in Barcelona, when he had come in early in the morning to find her dazed with sleep. He remembered also how she had asked him to repeat his remarks, and how carelessly nonchalant had been her manner.

"You look like a witch sitting crouched up there, Fatalite," he snapped. "What's the matter? You don't seem very cheerful."

"I don't feel very cheerful," the girl responded. She spoke with grave deliberation, and without moving a muscle. Emile grunted and sat down.

"There has been another explosion of bombs on the Rambla," he said. "A market woman killed and two work people injured—I believe one has since died. Of course a got-up affair of the Government. They hope by doing this sort of thing often enough to make the populace take vengeance on us."

"Then the Anarchists didn't do it?"

"My dear Fatalite, we don't blow up harmless people simply pour passer le temps. I've told you that before, and being inside the movement yourself you ought to know. It is a favourite trick of the officials to excite public feeling against us. They have been doing it now for the last three years, letting off bombs in various parts of the city. They take care always to choose the most frequented places and to kill someone who doesn't matter, and then all the Republican journals have four columns of indignation with large head-lines, 'LATEST ANARCHIST OUTRAGE.' They like to get their exploits well talked about. Everything seems to be against us now. Sobrenski will have it that there is treachery inside our circle as well as outside. You know whom he suspects?"

"No."

"Vardri."

"That is my fault," Arithelli said quietly. "Sobrenski has felt like that since the night Vardri made a scene about my being lowered down from the window. He just stood up for me because I'm a woman. I'm only a machine to the rest of you."

She spoke without a touch of resentment. It was purely a statement of fact.

"Ah, that's just the point. The feminine side of you is exactly what we don't want. One Felise Rivaz is enough, most of us think. Try and keep the elfish boy you were when you arrived. It will be less trouble, Fatalite, ma chere. With the other thing there are always complications. No, I'm not accusing you of falling in love with Vardri. I only say, be careful. Even an elf-child can develop suddenly into a woman once she arrives at a knowledge of the fact that there is a man ready to make love to her. Perhaps you do not know it yourself, but you have changed lately. You are losing your fearlessness, your indifference. I have watched you sometimes when you have not known, and have seen your eyes soften, your face change. You started when I spoke just now."

"How did you learn things about women? From books?"

"Books? Ma foi, no! I liked them well enough at one time, when I hadn't studied la vie. Now they're fade."

Arithelli was silent for a little while. She knew only too well that Emile had spoken the truth, had put into blunt words what to herself was only a vague, half-formed idea. Her illness had been Vardri's golden harvest time, for it had given him the chance of being often alone with her. He had read to her, waited upon her, served her with the utmost chivalry and devotion. He had made of her a Madonna, a goddess, she who was fair game for all other men in Barcelona.

Emile's voice broke in upon her meditations.

"You shouldn't worry, Fatalite. It's not becoming. Have a cigarette to make yourself a little distraction."

She shook her head.

"No, thank you, Emile. I never wanted to smoke, and any way it would not give me a distraction to-night."

"Then what are you worrying about?"

"I've only been wondering what will be the end of me."

"What has made you suddenly become so anxious about your end?" Emile looked at her keenly.

The wide eyes raised to his were tragedy incarnate. The long nervous fingers were tightly locked together.

"I'm a coward to-night," the soft hoarse voice went on. "I've never grumbled before, have I, Emile? I seem to have suddenly realised how hopeless everything looks for me in the future. I've had time enough to think it all out since I've been lying in bed. When I first came here I thought I was going to do all sorts of wonderful things, but now I see that this life leads to nothing, and I may go on being just a circus rider for years. When I get well and finish out this contract I shall have to try and get another engagement in Paris or Vienna. The English Consul and all the other men wait to see me come out, and throw me flowers and rings, but when they see me driving with you in the Paseo de Gracia, they look the other way, especially if they are with their wives and families. They like 'ARITHELLI OF THE HIPPODROME' in her proper place,—the ring. Gas and glare, paint and glitter! That is my life. And they always hope that I shall fall off. I can feel it. It's the Roman arena all over again. For a long time before I had that accident I didn't know how to get through the rehearsals. I nearly fell off two or three times, but there was no one there to see. The more I practised the more cold I got, and I used to have horrible shivering fits. It's so queer. I don't believe I'm made like other people. Estelle gets hot and scarlet when she practises."

"Poor little child!"

"Why are you so nice to me? You've never said anything like that before."

"Because if when you first came here I had begun to pity you it would have made you realise your position sooner than need be. You were like one in a dream. It was not my place to awaken you. I left that for Life, 'la vie' that you were so anxious to experience. You made yourself 'Chateaux en Espagne.' We all do that at some time or other."

"Nobody really cares what becomes of me except—" she broke off the sentence and continued steadily. "My people don't mind whether I am here or not. They won't like it if I come back a failure."

In his heart Emile cursed the Fates. Her awakening had been a complete one. At first novelty and excitement had served as merciful anaesthetics, but they could not last for ever.

He was not in love with her, he still told himself, but he would miss her. Women like the Roumanoff were the women to whom men made passionate love, but Arithelli was unique. She had become part of his life in Barcelona. Their lives had touched and mingled till it was impossible to believe that he had only known her for a few short months. A future without her would be one without interest. For her he could see no future. She would have to go to the devil some way or another eventually, and there would be plenty of people ready and willing to provide her with an escort.

He threw away his cigarette, and came across the room to her, and his hands fell heavily upon her shoulders.

"Look here, Fatalite," he said roughly; "we thought you were dying a little while ago, and I helped to fight for your life, and all the time, at the back of my brain I wished you were dead. Yes, you needn't look so horrified." He gave her a fierce shake. "I hoped to see you in your coffin. Can't you understand, Fatalite? No, of course you can't, and you think me a brute. One of these days perhaps you will think differently. Probably you imagine I don't care for you, but if I didn't should I mind whether you were alive or dead? You've always been saying that you feel something is going to happen. It seems you are right. There have been several unexpected developments during the last few days. It is most likely that I may be chosen to go back to Russia with despatches to one of the secret societies there. Here I cannot be arrested, there I can. Of course it means Siberia—eventually. That's only what we all expect."

"Then I shall be here alone."

"Yes, and there's no future for a woman in this vile place. You know the proverb they have, 'Can any good thing come out of Barcelona?' Your looks are against you too."

"There's always the river."

"Then when the time comes choose that—if you still have the courage. You've been bonne camarade to me, Fatalite. The men you will meet later on may not want that."



CHAPTER XV

"I kiss you and the world begins to fade." W. B. YEATS.

Count Vladimir and Emile met and consulted together, the immediate result of the interview being that Vardri was offered the post of private secretary to the former. Emile had gone out leaving them together, and Vladimir had hardly finished speaking when he found himself faced by an unexpected situation.

"I accept with pleasure," Vardri said, "but on one condition—that it means my remaining in Barcelona."

Vladimir hesitated. "Well, I had not contemplated that. Naturally one requires one's secretary to be—"

"I understand, Monsieur. I hope you will not consider me ungrateful, but there is a reason."

"It's a woman?"

Vardri bowed gravely. "Exactly, Monsieur. It's a woman."

"You are risking a great deal for her. Poleski has told me something of your circumstances, and it appears that if you do not get some appointment very soon, you will starve."

Vardri straightened himself, throwing back his head with a characteristic gesture. He looked the older man in the eyes, his own alight and eloquent under finely drawn brows.

"That's as it may be! I'll take my chance of work. In any case I cannot leave Barcelona. Of course, I regret greatly that it is impossible for me to fall in with your arrangements."

Vladimir smiled and shrugged. He knew the type with which he had to deal. Quixotic and generous to the verge of folly, the type that will sacrifice itself without reserve for an illusion, an ideal; the type that filled monasteries, and Siberian prisons, and made a jest for half the world. Such men were valuable to the Cause, because they gave ungrudgingly, and never counted cost. The Russian was a man of affairs, cautious, cynical and given to analysis, and he was also a student of human nature. He was moreover interested in the unknown woman.

If he had been told that she was Arithelli the circus-rider, who had sat silently upon the deck of his yacht dressed in gaudy raiment, and indifferent almost to stupidity, then his smile would have been contemptuous instead of tolerant. He was interested too in the unknown woman's champion. Something in Vardri's attitude of courteous defiance appealed to him by the law that will attract strongly one man's mind to another, diverse in every way. He could see that Vardri was plainly consumptive, and that the disease was in its advanced stages. Even with the aid of good food and an easier life he could not last more than a year or two, so one might as well make things a little more smooth for him during the time.

"I see you have the illusions of youth, my friend," he said carelessly. "I trust they may remain long unbroken. Myself I am sorry to have lived beyond the age when they content one. Sit down and talk to me." He motioned Vardri towards a chair. "Well, since you have refused to entertain my plan, we must think of something else. I'm at present writing a series of articles on 'Militarism in France,' and should like to have them translated for publication in an English journal. You speak the language well, better even than Poleski, for you have a better accent. I have been a good deal in London and I notice the difference. I suppose you also write it easily?"

"Yes, I had an English tutor."

"Good! Then you will undertake this work, and you shall fix the price of payment. I'm not in the least afraid of your asking more than I care to give. You are the type that gets rid of money, not the type that acquires it. Also I will give you an introduction which will enable you to get on the staff of Le Combat. They want another man there who is a good linguist, as there is a great deal of correspondence with other countries. As I have an interest in the paper, you may consider it settled. No, don't thank me. Your thanks are due to—a woman. She is unknown to me, but perhaps that is the reason I—I also owe you something, Monsieur Vardri. Your example has made me feel young again."

A week later Vardri went swinging quickly down the Calle San Antonio, on his way to Emile's rooms. He was in exuberant spirits, and whistled as he walked keeping step to the dancing gaiety of 'La petite Tonquinoise.' His headgear, which vied in picturesque disorder with Emile's historical sombrero, was pushed to the back of his head, exposing his thick, unruly hair, and over one ear, Spanish fashion, he had stuck a carnation.

There was more money in his pocket than he had possessed since his days of luxury in the Austrian chateau, and for him the sun was shining in a metaphorical as well as a literal sense. During the last few days he had been happier than he could have believed possible. He felt in better health, for he had been able to go to bed at a reasonable time, and though he missed the horses and the free life of the Hippodrome, and found the work of a newspaper office somewhat trying, there were shorter hours and other advantages.

He had also the joy of knowing that Arithelli was almost well again. She had not been out yet, but Michael Furness had declared her to be practically recovered.

One day Vardri hoped to take her along the sea-front towards the old quarter of the town, where the fishermen and sailors lived, and where she could sit on the stone parapet and look across the harbour, and let the sea-air blow strength and vitality into her.

After all he told himself, life was good even if one were a vagabond. Life with adventure, a little money, and love.

He burst open the door of Emile's sitting-room, and entered headlong. The sun-blinds were all drawn, making everything appear pitch dark after the blinding glare of the streets.

"I want some matches, Poleski! By luck, I've got some cigarettes. One never has both matches and cigarettes at the same time." He had come to a dead stop and stood staring.

"Fatalite! Fatalite! The gods are kind for once! If only I had known you were here sooner."

The half-full box of cigarettes descended to the floor, and its contents went in all directions, and he was kneeling beside her chair and holding both her hands. It was Arithelli not "Fatalite" who smiled back at him. The little mask-like face changed and grew soft till she looked more a girl, less an embodied tragedy. Vardri's wild spirits were infectious, and, as on the night of the Hippodrome fiasco, Youth called and Love made answer.

"Mon ami, I am so glad you have come."

"Is this the first time you have been out? Who said you could get up? The doctor?"

"No, it was Emile."

Vardri nodded towards the communicating door of the bedroom. "Poleski is here then?"

"No, and he doesn't know I'm here. He has gone to Saria and will not be back till late. I was horribly irritable this morning, so he thinks I'm all right now." A ripple of amusement broke her voice as their eyes met.

"My sweet, you must ask me to believe some other little histoire."

"Oh! but it's true. You should have heard us! I knew that it was funny afterwards, but there was no one to laugh with at the time. It was about that dreadful old coat of Emile's. He threw it on my bed, and—I can't help being a Jewess, can I? and I so loathe dust and dirt, and I said so. Emile was furious. 'Very well,' he said. 'If you are strong enough to grumble, you are strong enough to get up.' So when he had gone I dressed and came here. I was so glad to get away from that room."

"Not as glad as I am to see you here. And I've heard you laugh, Fatalite. You're a little girl today."

"I have moods, dear. I shall depress you sometimes."

Vardri smiled scornfully, and slid down to the floor, his head resting against her knee. "Je suis bien content! What cool hands you have, and how still you keep. No other woman in the world was ever so restful. You love to be quiet, don't you? I know you better to-day than I ever did. You were always in the wrong atmosphere at the Hippodrome."

"And I have to go back to it," the girl said under her breath. "And I may be hissed again. You will not be there now, and we shall miss you. I and Don Juan and Cavaliero, and El Rey, and Don Quixote. Some of the grooms are horrible, and the animals get so badly treated."

"It seems to me that everything gets badly treated here," Vardri muttered. "Women and horses, it's all the same. Don't let us talk about it. It drives me mad to think, I shan't be able to be near you. I was some use to you there."

He jumped up and began to move about the room collecting the scattered cigarettes.

"Shall I play to you, mon ange? I suppose the piano hasn't been tuned yet." He struck a few notes, and made a rueful grimace. "It's worse than ever."

"I'm afraid it never will be tuned now that I've been ill and caused so much expense. Emile always says he will go without cigarettes to afford it, and I say I will go without powder, but neither of us keep our heroic resolutions, and the piano gets worse and worse."

Vardri shut down the lid with a bang.

"Well, anyway it doesn't matter," he said, "I don't want to play or do anything; I just want to be with you."

"Bring up a chair, and sit and smoke, mon camarade." She held out her hand with a gesture of invitation, and Vardri took it and kissed it, and went back to his former position at her feet.

"Shall I read to you?" he asked. "Ah! I'd forgotten there was something I wanted to tell you. I found a poem the other day, a love-song of De Musset. Do you know that you lived in this very city years ago, Fatalite, and he saw you and loved you? How else could he have written this?

"Avez-vous vu en Barcelone, Une Andalouse au sein bruni, Pale comme un beau soir d'Automne, C'est ma maitresse, ma lionne, La Marchesa d'Amagui."

Arithelli listened, her eyes dilating, and a little flame of colour creeping up under the magnolia skin that made her likeness to the woman of the poem. Her awakening senses thrilled to the eager voice, the riotous challenging words:

"J'ai fait bien de chansons pour elle."

He broke off abruptly and continued: "I hate all the rest of it. The woman isn't like you, further on, and the lover laughs at his own passion, and the whole thing jars. That first verse haunted me for days after I'd read it."—The sentence was finished by a convulsive fit of coughing, which he vainly tried to stifle.

"This is the first time to-day," he gasped, between the paroxysms. "I'm quite well really. It's the cigarette. They often have that effect. Don't look so worried, or I shall think you hate me for being a nuisance."

"If you talk so foolishly I shall go."

She made an attempt to rise, but Vardri caught at her skirts. "You won't go! You don't want to make me worse, do you? Think how sorry you'll be if I cough and worry you all the evening!"

"Can't I get you anything? If only I were not so stupid about illness. Don't try to talk if it makes you worse."

"I won't—if you'll stay."

To Arithelli caresses did not come easily, but during the last few weeks she had learnt many things. She stroked the dark head that rested against her knee, wondering how it was that she had never before noticed till to-day how feverishly brilliant Vardri's eyes were, and how his skin burnt. She had often heard him coughing before, but he had always gone away and left her when an attack came on, with some laughing excuse about the horrible noise he made. After a while he shifted his position, and smiled up at her.

"You're getting tired, Fatalite!"

"No. Tell me, have you anything important to do to-night?"

"No, dear, and if I had I shouldn't do it. Do you feel well enough to come out and have dinner with me somewhere? I'll take you to some place where it's quiet."

"Why not let us stay here all the evening, and have supper together?" Arithelli suggested. "We'll take Emile's things. He loves cooking cochonneries, and there is sure to be a quelque chose somewhere in the cupboard."

Vardri scrambled to his feet. "Bon! Sit still, and I'll go and acheter les—things! We'll leave Emile's cochonneries alone. I'm rich now, so we will have luxuries."

"Yes, and I'll hunt for plates and dishes, and wash them properly (not like the Gentiles do) while you go and acheter les—things!" Arithelli mocked. "What a dreadful mixture of languages we all use! I used to speak German quite well when I was at the convent, but now I have forgotten nearly all of it. This place is bad for both one's French and English, and Emile says that when I try and speak Spanish it sounds like someone sawing wood."

Vardri went out still coughing, and came back flushed and excitable, laden with various untidy parcels, from which some of the contents were protruding. Long rolls, the materials for a salad, a pate, flowers, and an enormous cluster of grapes. They pledged each other in the yellow wine of the country, and presently Vardri set about the manufacture of what he inaccurately described as Turkish coffee. That the result of his efforts was half cold and evil-tasting mattered not to either of them.

Arithelli's red hair was crowned with vine leaves that he had stripped from the grape-cluster and twisted into a Bacchante wreath. She leant her elbow on the table, resting her chin upon her hand. Her eyes glowed jewel-like, almost the same colour as her garland. The flame of love had melted into warmth her statue-like coldness, and given her the one thing she had lacked—expression. Yet the mystery, the charm that surrounded her clung to her even when she appeared most womanly. To the boy lover gazing with devouring eyes she seemed that night more than a woman. He thought of the tales he had heard as a child from the peasants on winter nights in his own country. Tales of the forests and legends of the Hartz Mountains, of lonely places haunted by nixies and wood maidens, fairy shapes with streaming hair and vaporous robes, seeing which a man would become for ever after mad with longing, and desire no mortal woman.

Arithelli's long limbs appeared nymphlike in her plain blue high-waisted gown of Emile's choosing, that had no superfluous bow or trimming, and left free her beauty of outline. She possessed no jewellery now wherewith to deck herself, and there was no trace of artificial red on face and lips.

The candles on the table flickered to and fro in the draught from the open window and she shivered in the midst of some laughing speech and glanced over her shoulder at the door behind her.

Vardri, reading her thoughts, said, "You're afraid of something, dear, what is it?"

"Nothing, at least I thought someone was listening, was coming in. We are always talking of spies till one gets absurdly nervous and imagines all sorts of foolish things. I have never said so to anyone else, but there is always the feeling of being watched. It is so difficult to know who is for and who against us, and so easy to give evidence without meaning to be a traitor. Just before I got ill, Sobrenski sent me to a little newspaper shop down in the Parelelo quarter. I was to ask if they sold 'Le Flambeau.' The man looked at me hard and asked if there was any connection between that journal and the one published at number 27 Calle de Pescadores. The sun must have made me feel stupid, and I answered Yes, without thinking. I had taken it for granted that the man was one of us, and then I knew suddenly that he wasn't."

Vardri bent forward across the table. "Did you tell anyone what you had said?"

"Not Sobrenski; I told Emile. He looked me up and down, and said something that I couldn't hear, and then, 'I thought you could hold your tongue, Fatalite. It seems, after all, you are a woman and can't!' and then he walked out of the room. Vardri, did you ever feel as I do when you first began to work for the Cause? Perhaps one gets used to it in the end and doesn't care."

"Yes," the boy answered between his teeth, "Yes! One gets used to it. Dear, your hands are trembling. Do you think anyone can hurt you while I'm here? You are nervous because you've been ill, that's all. This is the first time you've been out and you are overtired. I'll take you back soon. You were all right a few minutes ago. You thing of moods!"

She tried to smile, "I warned you, mon ami."

"I know. It wasn't any use. That wreath makes you look like the statue of Ariadne in Rome."

"I wish you would talk to me about yourself."

"Myself!" Vardri shrugged expressively, "Ma foi!"

"Tell me what made you join the Cause."

"Because of a man I believed in. You have heard of Guerchouni who died early in the year? There was a great funeral in Paris. It was in all the papers."

Arithelli nodded, "Yes, I heard the men talking about it at one of the meetings. I wasn't interested enough to listen then. Was he—?"

"He was one of our greatest leaders. His death meant something to me, because it was really through him that I joined the Red Flag. He had a life sentence in Eastern Siberia and he escaped from there and got to America. For some time none of us knew exactly where he was, and then we heard rumours that he was dangerously ill at Geneva. Then came news of his death and his funeral in Paris. His friends had decided to bring the body there, so that all the comrades might be present, for there are many anarchists in Paris. They gave him a guard of honour of Russian students, men and women surrounding the coffin with linked hands, and there were hundreds of red roses and red carnations, though it was in the winter—there had been snow on the ground a few days before. There was a crown of thorns from those who had been his companions in prison, and the canopy of the hearse was a red flag. If only I could have been there to do him homage!

"There are all sorts of wild stories about his escape from Siberia. I suppose he bewitched the jailers as he bewitched other men. He was the first man I ever heard speak about the Cause. He came to Vienna and held meetings for the propaganda and collected enormous crowds. I had just begun to take life seriously then, to think about things and to hate injustice.

"My father drank and wasted money and treated his servants brutally. My mother was dead, and when she was alive she was an invalid, and could do nothing. Most of the people I knew seemed to think the serfs no better than animals. I remember how sometimes when we were starting off in the early morning for a boar hunt in the forest, they would come begging and whining round the horses' heels.

"They seldom got anything except a kick or a curse. They looked scarcely human, yet it was ourselves who were the brutes really.

"Well, Guerchouni spoke and I went and listened to him. A friend with whom I had gone to the meetings gave me an introduction to him. I was mad on the Cause long before the interview was over. He was a man that! If he had looked at me twice, I would have walked through flames to please him. Oh, I wasn't the only one! We all felt like that more or less with Guerchouni. I couldn't describe him. He was not a tall man, but he carried himself well, and he was dark and pale with wonderful blazing eyes. One knew him at once, and talked as if one had known him for years.

"Of course I accepted all his theories and doctrines except two. I don't believe in 'L'Union fibre.' (They all do, you know, or nearly all) and I never was an atheist.

"A Catholic and an Anarchist! It sounds impossible, doesn't it, but"—he flushed boyishly—"I believe in Le bon Dieu, and the union libre is hard on women. Yes, I adored Guerchouni. He worked day and night, he feared nothing, he did impossibilities himself and he made us do impossibilities."

"He was like Sobrenski."

"Yes, he was like Sobrenski in some ways. He will be a loss to the Cause."

For a few moments there was silence, and then Arithelli spoke. "Tell me one more thing. Now we are alone, we can speak the truth to each other, you and I. Vardri, do you still care for the Cause—in the same way you did before?" She whispered the question fearfully, yet knowing well what the answer must be.

"I don't feel the same about it since I have known you."

"I have not tried to make you a traitor, have I? Sobrenski always suspects me of that."

"My sweet, you have done nothing. I love you, therefore I must feel differently about the Cause. Why? Because I'm afraid of it for you. Because these men have no consideration for you as a woman, because they always make you take the greatest risks. It is always so in this work. Look what happens to the women in Russia. When there is a political 'Execution' there, nine times out of ten it is a woman who throws the bomb. Look at the things they have done lately. At the printing office we see all the anarchist journals, and the comrades get news privately. The men do little in risking their lives compared to the women, and some of them are so young. An article in 'Les temps Nouveaux' of last week said that, 'beside the men these young girls are as artistes beside artisans.' The last case was Sophia Pervesky. She was arrested for being in charge of a secret printing-press. Before the police seized her she nearly found time to put her lighted cigarette down on a pile of explosives. They wounded her in two places, threw her down, and stamped on her injuries. Then they took her to the hospital and kept her there till she had recovered. She waited two months for death and then they brought her out one morning in the dawn and hanged her.

"'You shall see how a Russian woman dies,' she told them as she ran up the ladder and flung herself into space.

"You women shame us with your courage. Now every time I hear of a thing like that, I think of you. You may have to run some great risk here for a caprice of Sobrenski's."

"Vardri, Vardri, I wonder what will be the end of it all?"



CHAPTER XVI

The walls of the Hippodrome were no longer adorned with gaudy posters whereon flared a travestied portrait of "The beautiful English equestrienne." No longer for Arithelli were showered roses, the tribute of head-lines in the weekly journals, and the welcome of many voices. She had been absent for nearly a month, therefore she might as well have been dead as far as the Spanish public was concerned.

The Manager had known this and had been careful to provide his patrons with a new toy, who had come, even as Arithelli herself, from Paris. This was a female contortionist with a serpent's grace, and a serpent's flat head, and wicked slit eyes. She had proved a success, so he could afford to exult, and Estelle dangled in triumph a new pair of diamond earrings. He had lost nothing and the once famous Arithelli, the "She-wolf" who had been mad enough to defy him, was now simply one of the crowd. Her name did not appear on the programme. She was not even Madame Mignonne now, but merely a unit among the many other women who were grouped in the grand spectacle, or a rider in a procession with twenty others. He had reduced her salary to a third of what it had been formerly, and every Saturday she was required to assist with the correspondence and weekly accounts. If she did not like this arrangement, he explained, she could fight out the terms of her contract in the courts. Doubtless she had a great opinion of her own capabilities, but as she could see for herself her place had been easily filled. The world was large, and there were plenty of women—sacre, too many!

As usual he was disappointed in the effect of his remarks. Whether her silence meant indifference or sheer stupidity he was never quite sure. As Arithelli had no vanity the loss of her position meant little to her.

The loss of a private dressing-room meant a great deal. It was a refined torture to her to be herded among the other women, with their noise and quarrelling and coarse jokes. She found changes too. Her friend the toothless lion had succumbed to old age, several of the helpers had been changed, and Vardri was no longer near at hand to lift her on to her horse and wait to help her dismount. Whenever he could get away from Vladimir and the newspaper office, he was among the spectators, and their thoughts and glances met across the wide arena's space. Emile did not come regularly now though he took care there was always someone sent to bring her home.

Since the night of the alarms in the Calle de Pescadores, the Brotherhood had decided in council that they must change their place of meeting, at any rate for a time, and that no part of the city itself could be considered safe for the purposes of a meeting place.

They must keep to the hut up in the mountains. This had been seldom used on account of the difficulty in getting there, and the waste of time involved by the distance. In all respects it was safer. If they were surprised it was not likely they would all be caught, for in the open there was always a chance of escape. The distance and lonely situation were all in their favour. In a small house in a narrow street they were like trapped animals.

The custom was to start at midnight on the outskirts of the town, collecting by degrees, and when they were well on their way the cavalcade joined together and formed into Indian file.

Some were on horseback and some on the more sure-footed mules.

Not one among the conspirators could ride with the exception of Vardri and Emile, and the knowledge of the art possessed by the latter was poor enough.

The steeds of the general company went at whatever pace they chose and in what direction they saw fit, and occasionally two or three got wedged together in some narrow place and there was an interlude of kicking and squealing.

Then "Fatalite" was called to the rescue as being the only one among them capable of managing horseflesh.

When not required in her office of peacemaker she was sent on in front as guide to the procession, dressed in her boy's disguise and astride the most vicious of the mules. These excursions meant less rest for her than ever for the party seldom returned till five o'clock in the morning.

Emile had told her that she must get her sleep up in the hut.

"You have two hours to yourself," he said. "You can't sleep up there? Nonsense! Make up your mind to do it and then you will."

The building in question, which was more like an outhouse than anything else, she had christened, "The Black Hole of Calcutta." The upper part, which was approached by a ladder as a loft would be, was used as a meeting-room, while the ground floor became a temporary stable for the horses and mules, of which she was left in charge. Since the scene in that upper room in the Calle de Pescadores she had put herself outside all consideration; and Sobrenski now excluded her from all work other than the merest drudgery. Vardri was also kept under surveillance. It was felt by all that in some quarter treachery lurked as yet undiscovered, and every man suspected his comrades. There were indications that someone, hitherto a sworn ally of the Cause, had turned spy and sold certain information to the authorities.

Even Sobrenski's iron nerves were stretched to breaking point.

The rest tried to drown anxiety in absinthe, and all grew daily more morose and uncertain of temper.

The first sensation came in the shape of a rumour that Count Vladimir's companion, Pauline Souvaroff, had disappeared.

Only three people knew that she had vanished utterly and completely on the same day that she had received a communication from the leader. The note had been brought to her by Vladimir himself. He could guess at its contents, but Pauline had revealed nothing.

Two hours afterwards when he went on shore she was shut up in her cabin, and he had not interrupted her, thinking she was asleep. When he returned, and found her door unlocked, and her cabin empty, a suspicion of the truth occurred to him.

Everything was left in perfect order, but there was no letter, no word of explanation. He questioned the crew, and heard that she had been rowed to shore by two of them soon after he left. She had given the men orders not to wait, but to return at once to the yacht. For a week Vladimir hunted through street and slum. At the end of that time he knew that alive or dead he would never see Pauline Souvaroff again. The missive he had brought her from Sobrenski had probably meant a journey for her to one of the great centres of the movement—Amsterdam, Geneva, or perhaps even London.

Alphonse of Spain was now in England, having escaped two attempts upon his life in Paris, and in his own capital. His every moment would be watched and noted by the destroyers of monarchy. Probably she had been chosen to obtain information, because women made better spies than men, and their movements were not so likely to be noticed by the police. Many a high official whose name was on the list of those condemned to death by a revolutionary tribunal had been tracked from city to city by female agents.

Yet, if she had been sent on such an errand, what reason could she have had for going in secret, alone and without a word of farewell? He had supposed it impossible that she could have kept anything from him; of course there must eventually be separation. He had warned her of that. And when it came he had expected scenes, tears and a frantic appeal.

That she should vanish in silence was inconceivable. Perhaps she had not cared for him so much after all. In any case the episode had been a charming one, and to him no woman could ever have been more than an episode. He had shown her some of the many beautiful things and places of the world, and by her own words he had made her happy. Now their play time was over. He had his work and she hers. She had come into his life as a piece of driftwood floats to shore on the edge of a wave, and gone out of it as noiselessly.

Vladimir did not discuss his private affairs, so that among all the conspirators Emile alone knew, and it was Emile alone who guessed the truth.



CHAPTER XVII

"Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse."

For some days Arithelli had not seen Emile, and she had wondered. Since the night she had sat with Vardri in his room, he had scarcely spoken to her except for a few moments on business matters.

She thought he looked haggard and worried, and there was a change that she could not define in his manner towards her. She wondered if he knew about Vardri, if he thought she was deceiving him.

She wanted to tell of this new, wonderful thing that had befallen her, but he had given her no chance, and she had begun to think that he did not even take sufficient interest in her to care what she thought or felt as long as she performed her allotted tasks and did not worry him with complaints or questions.

The feeling of a barrier between them troubled her vaguely, and she was glad when she found him one night waiting for her outside the stage door.

Half an hour later he was smoking a cigarette in her room while she brushed her hair.

They had been silent for some time, and both started when the door was assaulted by a sudden thump, and the scarecrow-like visage of the depressed landlady appeared in the opening.

Having delivered herself of a small cardboard box, and a few grumbling comments upon the indecent hours and ways of circus performers, she withdrew, and Arithelli proceeded to cut the string and remove the lid.

"I can't see what it is in this light," she said; "Emile, may I have the candle a little nearer? Flowers? No one sends me flowers now. But these are—"

Her voice broke and stopped. Emile, who had been on the alert from the moment of the landlady's entrance, sprang up and pulled the girl to one side. A mysterious parcel at that hour of the night, too late for any post. One might have guessed what it meant.

"What is it?" he asked sharply. The answer was an incoherent one, and he could see that she was paralysed with terror.

The opening of the box had revealed a sinister-looking bouquet of artificial black roses tied with blood-red ribbons.

In Barcelona there are many strange and ingenious ways of conveying death by explosives. A clock, a painted casket which might contain bon-bons; a coffee-pot, a casserole—any apparently harmless and common utensil.

A bunch of flowers was one of the most common mediums for a bomb.

The Anarchist colours showed clearly that it must either have been sent by an enemy who had been formerly one of the band, and who was now revenging himself by an attempt to see his former associates "hoist with their own petard," or else it was an affair of the police. In any case, supposing the thing to be harmless, it was a warning of danger.

Emile's wits worked swiftly, and he was used to emergencies. He looked round, and found a jug of water, and the floral tribute floated harmlessly therein. As it did not sink at once he concluded that there was no concealed bomb. Then he turned his attention to Arithelli, and gave her a vigorous shaking, which was probably, under the circumstances, the best possible restorative.

"You'll die more than once in imagination before your time comes, Fatalite. Probably the next parcel you receive will not need as much investigation."

She tried to smile. "I'm sorry! They looked so uncanny, and when I saw red I thought—Emile, what does it all mean?"

"It means danger, my dear. It means that you are suspected. You yourself best know whether the suspicion is deserved or not. Of course it may be only one of the police tricks, but I don't think so. Anyway whether it was charged or not it's safe enough now. Look in the box and on the floor to see if there's any note or message. There isn't? Eh bien! I suppose they thought this would speak with sufficient eloquence."

He fished the bedraggled bouquet out of the water and hung it like a trophy across Arithelli's mirror, which was a fetish of its owner and the one valuable thing she now possessed. It had been the gift of Michael Furness, who had bought it from the Jewish herbalist. It was of antique silver gilt in oval shape, and rimmed with rough topaz set in silver, and was alleged by its former owner to have been the property of Agnes Sorel. Arithelli had often declared that in it she could see visions as in a crystal.

Over it Emile carefully arranged the flowers so that the stained red ribbons hung limply across the polished surface. Then he sat down again and lighted another cigarette.

"You ought not to be afraid of this sort of thing, you know," he said. "Sudden death is part of our business. In the oath we take we swear to 'Slay or be slain,' if by so doing we can advance the Cause one small step forward."

She caught at her breast with a sudden gesture of passion. Death—could they talk and think of nothing else? And she was a woman now, not a weapon, and she wanted life.

"You don't seem very enthusiastic," the cold voice continued. "A few months ago the dangerous side of the game was rather an attraction to you than otherwise. Now you shrink and shiver at everything. You do your work, yes, because, you can't help doing that, but is there any heart in what you do?"

"None! Every day I live, I loathe it more!"

"Take care!"

"I'm past caring. When I came out here first I was a child playing at a new game."

Emile's back was turned to her, and if his answering speech was brutal, it was because his conscience was awake and crying fiercely. He would not be likely to make the mistake of interfering with people's lives a second time. He had seen in her an instrument to be handled at will, and had charged himself with the burden of her destiny, and now he supposed she was about to reproach him.

"You are hysterical. That's the worst of women. They always are—more or less. You had better go to bed, and not talk nonsense. If you were a child only a few months ago you are not too old to be treated as one now."

It hurt him more than it hurt her, but she would never know that. His pulses hammered furiously as she dropped at his side with a soft rustle of garments. Her clasped hands rested on his knee; the strong, slender hands that had grown rough with work.

"Emile," she whispered, "can't you see that I've altered? I'm a woman now. You said I should be one soon. I've wanted to tell you all along, but I always hoped you had guessed."

"Perhaps I did, but I preferred that you should tell me yourself. And since when have you become what you call 'a woman'? No, you needn't answer. When I knew that you and Vardri had been together in my rooms, I was certain I had not warned you without reason."

"You knew before I did myself."

"Mon enfant, I'm neither blind nor a fool. As they say in this country, 'love and a cough cannot be hidden.' I was sure about Vardri, but about you;—no, one couldn't say. When you came out here you were a sexless creature with a brain. It did not seem likely that you would develop into the ordinary girl with a lover."

It was the only way he could keep a hold upon himself, by keeping up a pose of cynicism. The fragrance of her hair, the curved mouth so close to his own, maddened him. He who could have been her lover had been only her guardian, her taskmaster. And now she was ready to give herself to a boy, who thought life was a romance, and who would probably sit at her feet reading poetry while they both starved.

"You have been together often?"

Her head drooped. "Yes. I should have told you before."

"What plans have you made? I suppose it will be the usual mad scheme of running away. I ought to betray you, of course, but—"

"We haven't arranged anything yet; there is plenty of time."

"Plenty of time—Mon Dieu!" the man rasped out. "How like you, Fatalite! What a pair! Vardri always living au clair de la lune, and you half asleep, and full of illusions. Les illusions sont les hirondelles. How often have I told you that?"

"They make life possible," Arithelli answered softly.

Again the man stared and marvelled. Verily, here was another being who was neither "Becky Sharp" nor "Fatalite." The exultation, the triumph of one loved and desired, was hers for the moment. Who, seeing her now, could have the heart to warn her of inevitable disillusion, the doubts and fears, the clinging and the torments that are the heritage of all womenkind.

He, too, had once dreamed foolish dreams.

He gripped her by the shoulder and forced her to look at him.

"Vardri is your lover? You shall answer me before I leave this room."

She did not flinch, or blush, or look away.

"I love him."

Joy shone in her widely open eyes. Love hovered about her mouth, and the passion that had stirred in him momentarily shrank back ashamed. He pushed back her hair with a rough caress.

"It's all right, ma chere. You needn't be afraid. I shall not be here to advise you soon, and all I have to say now is, never imagine yourself secure for an instant. Sobrenski is bound to discover this in the course of time, and he has seen this sort of thing before, which will not make him any more merciful. He has watched human nature long enough to know that where there is what you would call love, people want to create, they no longer want to destroy. If, as you say, you have made no plans, then make them. And now you'd better go to bed, unless you want to look more like a ghost than usual to-morrow."

As he went out into the moonlit street Emile knew that he had taken the first step on his Via Crucis. He did not call it that, for of religion in the orthodox sense he possessed nothing, but he knew that his feet were set upon the path where snow and blood would mingle in his footprints. He was going back to Russia, where death would be a thing to be welcomed and desired. He had listened to the tales of escaped prisoners, and he knew that no words could exaggerate this frozen Hell in which flourished vices unnamable, where men rotted alive, and women strangled themselves with their own hair, or cut their throats with a scrap of glass to escape the brutalities of a gaoler or Cossack guard.

He wondered whether it would be Akatui, or the mines, for him. It was no use to try and delude himself that he could escape the police.

He had got out of Russia by the skin of his teeth last time, and, even if he managed to get his despatches safely delivered, there would be a raid on the newspaper office, an arrest in the street. Of course there was always the hope that he might come in for a chance shot in a scrimmage, but that was too much luck to expect.

He had nothing to wait for now after what he had heard to-night, and the sooner he put himself out of the way, the better. He would volunteer at once for the St. Petersburg mission. The usual custom was to cast lots, unless some enthusiast begged for the privilege of a speedy doom. By virtue of his long service he had a right to claim that privilege.

If he could go to-morrow so much the better. After what Arithelli had confessed it would be dangerous for them both if he stayed. For a moment the primaeval man in him leapt up, telling him that he had only to pit himself against Vardri, and the victory would be assuredly his own. His rival was only a boy, and Emile knew that if there came the struggle between male and male, the odds were all in his own favour. Arithelli had grown into the habit of obedience to him, and if he wished it he could make it practically impossible for her to see Vardri without his knowledge and consent. She would sorrow for her lover at first, but he was a man, and he could make her forget.

A thousand little devils crowded close, whispering how easy it would be to get Vardri sent out of the way. A few words to Sobrenski, and the whole thing would be done.

His sense of justice reminded him that he least of all people had a right to grudge her a few hours of happiness. If he obliterated himself he was only making her a deserved reparation for some of the things she had suffered. Through him she had joined the Anarchist ranks, and through him she had taken vows that despoiled her of the hopes and joys of womanhood, and transformed her into an instrument of vengeance. She had apparently never realised that she had been in any way injured, for she had never blamed him, and been invariably grateful for anything he had done for her physical comfort.

She loved Vardri, or imagined that she did. Emile told himself savagely that he was a fool who deserved no pity, for he had had his own chance and missed it. He had been with her by night and day, and her life had been in his own hands all these months, but he had never made love to her. He had only bullied her, taught her, made her work, looked after her clothes and food, and, he knew it now too late, loved her.

She had never suspected it, and the secret should remain his own. Love and love-making were two very different things. She did not know that now, but later on she would, when she was ten years older, perhaps, and then it would not matter to him, for he would be under two or three feet of snow in a Siberian convict settlement.

He had gone about persuading himself that she was still a child, and this Austrian boy, this wastrel and dreamer, had awakened her.

It was no use wasting time in sentiment and regrets. A la Guerre, comme a la Guerre. The episode was finished.

He would have work enough to divert his mind soon. There was nothing left to him now but the Cause.

He would see Sobrenski to-morrow, and hurry on all arrangements for departure.

After all, as he had once told Arithelli, in any venture it is only the first step that counts.



CHAPTER XVIII

"Would I lose you now? Would I take you then? If I lose you now that my heart has need, And come what may after death to men, What thing worth this will the dead years breed?" THE TRIUMPH OF TIME.

Three days later the early morning post brought Arithelli a letter.

She sat up in bed eagerly to receive it, and with the heaviness of sleep still upon her eyes. As she read, the lace at her throat trembled with her quickened breathing, and her heart called back an answer to the tender, reckless phrases.

Vardri was idealist as well as lover, and graceful turns of expression came to his pen readily and without effort. In many pages of characteristic, hurried, irregular writing he set forth wild and unpractical schemes for their future.

He urged her to take the dangerous step of leaving Barcelona and cutting herself free of the bonds of her allegiance to the Cause.

If there was risk in going, he wrote, there was infinitely more risk in remaining.

If he abandoned his political views it was more than likely that his father would receive him. Their quarrel and parting four years ago had been solely on those grounds, and he was the only son, and there were large estates to be inherited.

If it were the price of gaining her he was prepared to renounce all his theories, socialist and revolutionist.

He had been able to save a little money lately, enough for their journey to Austria. He was sure of a welcome among the officials and work-people of his former home. The wife of the steward had been his mother's maid, and she and her husband would give him shelter till he could see his father and make terms.

If things turned out well then his life and Arithelli's would be one long fairy-tale, which should begin where all other fairy-tales ended. If his father refused to see him then surely they could both find some engagement in another circus or Hippodrome.

She had the advantage of the reputation she had gained here, and he could work in the stables again, and they would be free and together.

Arithelli kissed the letter, before she put it down, and lay back with her hands over her eyes, trying to think. She had begun her adventures by running away from home, and now for the second time her only course was flight. Even Emile had told her not to waste time in going. For her it seemed there was never to be any peace or rest.

If they could only find some haven away from all the world, she thought. A forest or desert, some unknown spot where there was air and space and natural savage beauty, a tent to dwell in, a horse to ride, complete freedom, the life of her remote ancestors, simple, dignified.

Once she had craved for change. Now she feared it. She knew what Vardri had ignored, that the moment they both left Barcelona they would become fugitives. If they were discovered they would be treated simply as deserters from the ranks of an army.

Instinctively her thoughts turned to Emile. It was he who must help her to decide. She slid out of bed, and commenced her toilet, while she recalled to mind the things that must be got through during the day. There was a manuscript to be delivered to Sobrenski, an article of Jean Grave's from Les Temps Nouveaux which she had copied for reproduction.

She finished dressing her hair, and pushed the window more widely open, for the sound of music in the distance had caught her ear.

Though it was now autumn, and in England there would have been mist and gloom and fogs, here the sun shone, and the air was sweet and mild.

The parching, exhausting heat of the summer was gone, and everything smelt fresh and clean, without any touch of winter cold.

Down below in the Calle Catriona the music swelled louder and higher till her attic room was filled with the dancing notes.

Along the pavement two men walked slowly with guitar and flageolet.

They walked turning in opposite directions, their heads thrown back, their feet keeping step, two black-haired, supple vagabonds of gypsy breed, who had come down to the city from their mountain home on the heights of Montserrat.

The guitar twanged merrily, the reed-like notes of the flute were true and clear as the song of a thrush. The melody turned and climbed and twisted, rose to a climax, and re-commenced again the same phrase. Arithelli listened, hypnotised and bewitched, as she always was by music.

Something wild and primitive in her responded to the shrill, sweet, insistent call. She had felt like that before, listening to the Tziganes on the Rambla, and it was as if the heart were being dragged out of her body. She thought of the childish story of the Piper of Hamelin. She could understand now what had made the children follow him with dancing footsteps, through street to street, on, on from dawn till dusk.

The guitar-player glanced up in passing and mocked her with laughing eyes. An orange-coloured scarf left his brown throat exposed, and there were gold rings in his ears. She kissed her hand and called down greetings in Spanish, and stood at the window, watching and listening and longing to run out into the street and follow as the children followed through the town of Hamelin.

All the joy of life was in those oft-repeated and alluring phrases, the fall of water, the hum of bees, the shiver of aspen leaves, the slow music of a breaking wave.

She strained to hear the last faint echoes till all sound was hidden by a turn of the road, and the brief enchantment was at an end, leaving her to the realities of life.

She dressed slowly, singing under her breath as she plaited her hair before Agnes Sorel's mirror. Before she left the room she thrust the loose sheets of Vardri's letter between the folds of her blouse, leaving the envelope lying among the bed clothes.

Late in the afternoon one of the "comrades" brought her a cipher message, warning her of a meeting arranged to take place in the "Black Hole" up in the hills.

Half an hour after she left the Hippodrome she was in boy's clothes and riding out to the rendezvous to wait till the others appeared. She had hoped for the chance of a talk with Emile, but to her surprise he was not among those who mustered outside the town. She had never known him to be absent from a meeting before, but it was not her business to ask questions.

While the rest of the company occupied themselves with long and bloodthirsty orations, and hatched fresh schemes for the destruction of their fellow-creatures, and the regeneration of the whole earth, she went quietly about her duties as stable boy.

When she had finished she set the lantern at the furthest end of the stable, and pulling off her hat and black curly wig stretched herself wearily at full length on a truss of hay in a dark corner among the tethered horses. The ways of men she had begun to fear and hate, but of the beasts she had no fear, for they were always grateful to those who cared for them, and they also had suffered at the hands of their masters.

A lethargy had taken possession of her whole body, and her limbs felt heavily weighted. She closed her eyes and sank inertly into the bed of soft and fragrant hay.

Her loose shirt of faded dusky red had fallen open at the throat, and showed the dead-white skin. Her feet, in riding boots of brown leather, were crossed beneath the dark drapery of her cloak. A leather strap served as a belt for the slender hips that were more like those of a boy than a woman. The horses fidgeted and stamped, and a mule dragged at its halter with laid-back ears and vicious sidelong glances. Sometimes a stirrup or a bit clashed against another with a musical ring and jingle.

Arithelli heard nothing till she awoke to find herself in Vardri's arms, and being lifted into a sitting position with her back against the wall.

In answer to her sleepy murmur of surprise, a hand was laid over her mouth with a whispered—"Gare a toi petite! ne fais pas de bruit."

She sat up fully awake, and swept the veil of hair out of her eyes.

"Oh! it's you, mon ami! Is it time to go? I must get up and see to the horses."

But he held her kneeling by her side.

"No, no! Lie still, dear. There's time enough. Yes, Sobrenski is still talking. Can't you hear him? You had my letter safely?"

She laid her hand on her breast.

"It's here."

"Thank you! How long is it since I've seen you? It seems like a century. Those brutes up there were driving me mad with their cold-blooded arrangements for wholesale murder. The latest idea is to explode a bomb outside one of the big cafes when Alfonso comes here next week to inspect the troops. They might as well leave him alone. What harm has he done them? As long as they can see people flying into atoms with the help of a little nitroglycerine they are quite happy. Vengeance, vengeance! That is their eternal cry. Of course in Russia it's a different thing. One must either be an autocrat and slave-driver or a Nihilist out there, but here—they are mad, all of them! They have just settled to draw lots to-morrow night. I wonder who will have the 'honour' of becoming executioner? I suppose they can't do it to-night because Poleski isn't here."

Arithelli shook her head.

"That is not the reason. They have given Emile other work to do in Russia. He is leaving here very soon. I thought you knew."

"Who told you that Poleski is going away? It may not be true."

"Emile himself. Oh! it's true enough. I don't know when he will go. He doesn't know himself, but soon."

"Will you trust me to take care of you when Poleski is gone?"

"I'll trust you always."

"Promise me you'll come away with me. If you care you'll come. I'll give up the Cause for your sake. I've told you so in my letter and now I say it again."

"So I've made you a traitor. Sobrenski was right."

"My sweet, how can I live with violence and death and misery since I have known you? I want to get away from men and back to Nature to be healed. It doesn't follow that because I have grown to hate some of the revolutionist methods that I am against all their theories. I believe they are right in sharing things, in fighting for those who are trodden down by the rich, but you and I can still believe all that without becoming inhuman. Think of Sobrenski. He's a werewolf, not a man! Promise me that you'll come soon. Let me take you away before they make you one of their 'angels of vengeance,' as they call these women of the revolution."

Excitement and the feverish devil of consumption had turned his blood to fire. He would take no denial, pay no heed to Arithelli's entreaties for time to think, and to consult Emile.

For once he forgot to be gentle, and dragged her head back roughly, whispering passionate words, his face pressed against her own. For a moment he saw no longer the goddess on her ivory throne, but a woman of flesh and blood, warm, living, and fragrant and to be desired after a man's fashion.

Arithelli closed her eyes and leant back, yielding herself to his caresses. The pressure of his hand across her throat hurt her, but in some strange way it also gave her pleasure. Love, the schoolmaster, again stood by her side teaching her the lesson learnt sooner or later by all women, that pain at the hands of one beloved is a thing close akin to joy. She felt incapable of any struggle or resistance, bodily or mental. She had given her heart therefore her body was also his to use as he willed, and feeling her thus abandoned to him all the boy's chivalry was stirred anew, and the hunger for possession was lost in the desire to serve and protect.

Possibly if he had been forty instead of twenty-eight, he would perhaps have demanded a man's rights. Being, however, according to the world's standard, a fool and a dreamer, he chose to let the moment pass, to refuse what the gods offered, to think of Arithelli rather than of himself.

"I'm hurting you, dear." His voice shook a little, in spite of his efforts to control it.

"No. Nothing hurts now. And I'm glad you love me."

"I hurt you a minute ago. I was mad and a beast. Will you forgive me? You are not frightened?"

"No. I was only thinking of the future of tomorrow."

"Let us forget to-morrow," the boy pleaded. "Can you not forget for once?"

"We have to-day, and each other. 'Aujourd'hui le Printemps, Ninon.' It's summer for us now, Fatalite! When one loves there is always summer."

He drew her out into the starlight as he heard the noise of the men pushing back their seats and moving about overhead.

Several voices were raised in angry altercation.

He raged inwardly as he thought how in a few minutes he would have to see her at the orders of them all, sent here and there, at everyone's call, and forced to work without either thanks or reward.

"Let me go in, dear," Arithelli said. "They will expect to find things ready."

But Vardri held her back.

"Let them expect! Give them the trouble of looking for you. They keep you up all night, so they can afford to waste a few minutes extra."

It was both a foolish and useless protest and Arithelli knew that she would pay afterwards for these snatched moments, but she did not grudge the price, for to her they seemed worth the payment required.

She was glad of the air too.

She turned a little in Vardri's arms, lifting her face to the soft night wind. The coolness and the dark were like the touch of a soothing hand.

The branches of the tree under which they stood rustled softly, and the undergrowth stirred with the startled movements of some awakened bird or small animal.

A bat flew past, almost brushing them with its velvet wings. From the marsh lands below the dangerous white mist hovered like a fairy veil.

"I love the night," Arithelli whispered. "It makes me want to do all sorts of things. Do you remember the story of Marguerite of France, who heard the gypsies singing under her window and leant out and called to them to take her away. I feel like that. Do you understand?"

Vardri drew her closer. "I know, my heart. Tell me more."

"There were some gypsies singing under my window this morning," Arithelli went on. "I wished I could have gone out and followed them 'over the hills and far away' like the children in the old rhymes. The Irish and Jewish people have always been wanderers. Perhaps that is why I am fated never to stay long in one place."

He answered her in the same mood.

"We'll start at once, shall we, Fatalite? We'll saddle two of the horses and ride, ride day and night till we come to Montserrat, and there we shall find your gypsies and their tribe. When you come to my country there'll be gypsies too, and they shall play and sing for you, and you'll know what music is for the first time."

"How foolish we are!" Her eyes were wet, but she was smiling. "If Emile heard me talking like this he would be so angry."

"He talked like this once," Vardri replied. "Poleski was young too not so very long ago, and he loved someone."

"Yes, I know." She found it almost impossible to think of Emile as a lover in spite of the photograph she had found, and the words in his own writing upon his songs. She knew them by heart. "Emile a Marie. Sans toi la mort." And on another, "Etoile de mon ame! Je vous adore de tout mon coeur, ton Emile."

Perhaps it was the memory of this passion of his youth that had made him kind to her.

While they talked and lingered, Sobrenski was descending the rickety ladder that served as a staircase.

He had noticed Vardri's exit from the room, as he noticed everything else. All the other men had been too excited to care whether one more or less was there or not. In the hot argument that raged in the upper room, the absence of one of the members of the Brotherhood was apparently forgotten.

Their leader, however, did not lose his head or his powers of observation even when matters of life or death were in the balance. Whatever he did was always done deliberately and in cold blood.

All the time he had been apparently presiding over the discussion he had also been thinking rapidly.

It would be to his ultimate advantage not to interfere with Arithelli and Vardri just now, but to let them be together, to see as much of each other as possible. It was as well that Vardri should become thoroughly infatuated, as then he would be certain to take some step that would bring things to a crisis. They would be sure to try to escape out of the country and hide themselves somewhere. They would not be the first people who had tried that sort of thing before.

In the course of his life he had known others who had flung the Cause and their vows to the winds from fear or passion and tried to hide themselves under some disguise.

If they happened to be clever and have plenty of money their escape had been fairly easy, and they had even been safe for perhaps a year or so. Then just as they had begun to feel secure and had grown careless, the vengeance of their own particular circle had overtaken them. There had been accounts in the newspapers of a mysterious tragedy to which no motive could be assigned, and for which no one could be brought to justice, and that was all.

They were all monotonously alike, these affairs!

Sobrenski had said little to anyone else of his suspicions.

No need to declare anyone a traitor till it was proven. Such things had a demoralising effect, and treachery was an infectious disease.

He descended the uneven rungs of the ladder, treading soft-footed as a cat.

There was no noise of talking, so of course she was asleep. Sacre, these lazy women! So she could not keep awake even for a lover!