The Hippodrome Part 28

"_Bon jour_, Emile! You wanted me?"

He pointed to a chair.

"Sit down! Your hat is on crooked--as usual! Are you so little of a woman that you never use a mirror?"

A gleam of fun lit up her eyes.

"You covered mine up the other night with that horrible wreath and streamers. I can only see myself in little bits now."

"Well, sit down and I'll talk to you presently."

Emile returned to the sorting and destruction of his correspondence, and Arith.e.l.li lay back in her chair with a sigh of content, and closed her eyes. When she opened them again he was standing beside her with a gla.s.s of red wine in his hand.

"Drink this," he said, giving it to her.

"It isn't _absinthe_, is it?" she asked. "I can't see in this light, and I don't want--"

"It doesn't matter what it is or what you want. Don't argue, but finish it. How fond you women are of talking!" He waited till she had obeyed him.

"You see that music? Well, you can take it back with you. I shall not have any more use for music when I leave here. And listen to me now, and don't go to sleep for the next five minutes if you can help it."

He kept full control of himself and his feelings. If anything his voice was a little more rasping than usual, and his dry words of counsel and advice were spoken in his ordinary hard, practical manner.

An outsider would have found it difficult to say which was the more indifferent in appearance of these two who had been so strangely intimate for half a year, and who were now about to part.

The girl was apathetic from physical fatigue and past emotions.

She thought as she looked round the familiar room how impossible it was to believe that she would never be there again after to-day, and that Emile would never again come to her.

The wine cleared her brain and made her blood run more quickly. She roused herself to listen to what Emile was saying, and to answer the questions he was asking her about her own arrangements. She thought he seemed relieved when she told him of Vardri's scheme, and she restrained a strong desire to tell him also about the missing letter.

He gave her an address in the Russian capital to which she could write during the next month, warning her at the same time to be careful in what she said, to mention no names, and to avoid all references to politics, as his correspondence would run the risk of being edited by the police. Inside the envelope on which the address was written he had enclosed forty francs.

"You'll probably find a little money useful one of these days," he said. "Keep it till you really want it. You can't wear more than one pair of boots at once, and there are other things more important. I don't want you to thank me. You can go and sing something instead, and do your best as it's for the last time."

Arith.e.l.li rose at once and went to the piano, eager to do something that might give him pleasure.

She could play for herself now. Emile had succeeded in teaching her a few easy accompaniments, so that he could listen without distraction.

She hesitated for a minute, turning over his big music book, and then chose the popular song of the _cafe-chantants_ and streets, the famous "_La Colombe_" with its lilting time, and mingled gaiety and sorrow.

One heard it everywhere, sung in Spanish, in the local patois, and in French, by _artistes_ in the theatres, by factory girls, and sailors, and market people. The _gamins_ and beggars whistled and hummed it in the streets and squares.

Emile walked up and down the room as he listened. He had made her sing in the hope of lessening in a small degree the strain he was enduring, but what had possessed her to choose this song of all others? The words told of one who was about to set sail, and lingered bidding adieu to his Nina, the woman he loved.

"_Le jour ou quittant la terre pour l'ocean, Je dis, priez Dieu, priez Dieu pour votre enfant.

Avant que nous mettre en route je crus revoir, Nina! qui pleurait sans doute de desespoir._"

One could hear the rocking of the boat at anchor, the rippling of the out-going tide.

In the second verse the time was changed, the words were hurried and insistent.

"_Nina! si je succombe, el qu'un beau soir, Une blanche colombe vient te voir, Ouvre-lui ta fenetre car ce sera, Mon ame qui peut-etre te reviendra._"

Her voice had grown weaker since her illness, and she sang with visible exertion and faulty breathing, but it was still the golden voice of the Israelitish woman, and there was the same _timbre_ that had attracted him, and made him speak to her that afternoon in May at the station.

And all that had only happened six months ago! When she had finished he said nothing in approval, but he asked her to sing again, and she understood, and was pleased.

"You may thank the Fates for having given you a voice," he told her.

"It's better than a face. It lasts longer. No man having once heard you would listen to another woman."

It was the first compliment he had ever made her, but Arith.e.l.li did not answer. Her back was turned towards him as she gathered together the music.

He could see that her whole body was trembling with repressed sobs. If he could only have been sure they were for him, he would have taken her in his arms. She was sorry he was going, perhaps, in a way, but not in the way he wanted. She had become dependent upon him, and he had filled a certain place in her life. If she made a scene it was entirely his own fault. Farewells were always a mistake, and he had been foolish enough to allow her to sing sentimental verses about doves and people's wandering souls. She was over-tired and over-wrought, and a woman's tears were more often due to physical than to mental reasons.

So he argued, trying to convince himself, yet knowing all the time that Arith.e.l.li was not one of the women whose emotions are on the surface.

Once before he had seen her cry, and now as then he stood apart. It was for Vardri to dry her tears.

He glanced at the clock. Of course it was wrong, but he knew by the shadows that filled the room that it must be time for her to leave if she was to appear in public again to-night.

He must hurry the interview to a close, for he could not play his part much longer.

"You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Arith.e.l.li. _Vous avez la chance_! What have I given you but work and grumbles, eh?"

The soft, broken voice answered him:

"I shall feel afraid without you."

"You will have Vardri,--your lover." His tone was brutal as the blow of a knife. The natural animal jealousy of a man had risen in him again. When he was between stone walls, she would have the warmth of a lover's arms; every nerve in his own body would know it, and long for that which he had himself resigned.

He would have long hours to sit and think the thoughts that drive men to insanity or self-destruction.

"Yes, but one can care in different ways, and you have done so many things for me."

The man drew in his breath sharply. The knife was in her hand now, but she had stabbed unconsciously. He knew that she spoke quite simply, thinking only of his care for her physical well-being.

Truly he had done things, things that he would have given several years of life to undo.

Now he had that for which he craved,--the a.s.surance that she cared, that she would miss him. Still he did not delude himself. He knew that what she felt towards him was not the love between a woman and her mate, but the affection of dependence, of habit. Yet for such as it was his soul uttered thanksgiving. Any other woman gifted with a less sweet nature would have felt for him nothing but hatred, but in Fatalite's mind neither spite nor malice ever found a place. The petty vices of womankind had never been hers. He knew now that he had been something to her, and that knowledge would make sunshine for him even in the shadow of a prison. It gave him courage also to play out the tragi-comedy to the end, to make a brave jest, to lie convincingly.

"We needn't make each other eternal adieux, _mon enfant_. You must not take all I said about Siberian dungeons _au serieux_. Russia isn't quite as dangerous as it's made out to be. Of course the police keep a watch more or less on the 'suspects,' but we know all their tricks, and how to avoid them. Plenty of us go to St. Petersburg and even to Kara and come back again. The Schlusselburg fortress is about the only place we haven't succeeded in getting out of yet. It's fairly easy to manage a false pa.s.sport. You can write to me at the address I've given you."

It was all over now, and he was alone. He had taken both her hands for an instant, and felt the convulsive clinging of the thin fingers. He had longed to kiss them, but dared not trust himself. His words were only such as might have been used by anyone of the Brotherhood.

"_Au revoir, camarade_!"