The Hippodrome. Rachel Hayward

songs. Emile, who was himself music-mad, had discovered her to be possessed of a rough contralto voice of a curious mature quality. It would have been an absurd voice for ballads in a drawing-room, but it suited fiery declamations in praise of La Liberté!

      They were sitting in Emile's room now, for they made use of each other's lodgings alternately, and there was a battered and rather out-of-tune piano. Sometimes, after the evening performance, there would be a gathering of the conspirators, all more or less morose, unshaven and untidy; and while Emile played for her, Arithelli would stand in the middle of the room, her green eyes blazing out of her pale face, her arms folded, singing with a fervour which surprised even her teacher, the lovely impassioned "Rêve du prisonnier" of Rubinstein. She was always pleased with her own performances, and not in the least troubled with shyness. Also she was invariably eager to practise. She shook down her skirt, went across to the piano and began to pick out the notes.

      "S'il faut, ah, prends ma vie. Mais rends-moi la liberté!"

      Emile was sewing on buttons. Though he did not look in the least domesticated, he was far more dexterous at such work than the long-fingered Arithelli. In fact it was only at his suggestion that she ever mended anything at all.

      "Do you ever by chance realise what you are singing about?" he demanded.

      "Of course I do. I'm a red hot Socialist. I've read Tolstoi's books and lots of others. I got in an awful scrape over political things just the little time I was in Paris. It was when the Dreyfus case was on. Madame Bertrand was terrified at the way I aired my opinions. You see politics are so different abroad to what they are in England."

      Emile agreed. The girl was developing even more than he had hoped.

      "Ah! This is the first time I've ever heard about your political opinions."

      "You've never asked me before. One doesn't know everything about a person at once."

      Again Emile agreed. Then he said abruptly, "Well, if you have all these ideas you'd better join the Cause."

      "I'd love to! Shall I have to go to meetings with Sobrenski and all the rest of them?"

      "Probably. But you'll not be expected to talk. You may be told to do some writing or carry messages."

      "Is that all?" She seemed rather disappointed. Emile felt for a moment almost inclined to develop scruples. She evidently regarded Anarchy at large as a species of particularly exciting diversion.

      "Who are the other women mixed up with it?" she asked.

      "There are no other women. You should feel honoured that we are having you."

      Emile stood up, having completed his renovating operations. "You want to sing, eh?" Arithelli assented eagerly. "You will work?" Emile demanded.

      "Yes!" Her eyes had become suddenly like green jewels, and she looked almost animated. She was more interested in Emile's music than in any other part of him. His wild Russian ballads sung with his strange clipped accent and fiery emphasis, fascinated her. She was content to listen for an indefinite period of time, her long body in a restful attitude, her feet crossed, her hands in her lap, as absolutely immovable as one who is hypnotised.

      Emile, for his part, was equally interested in her exploits in vocalism, which he found as extraordinary and unexpected as everything else about her. Her singing voice was so curiously unlike her speaking voice that it might have belonged to another person. It had tremendous possibilities and a large range, but it was hoarse and harsh, and yet full of an uncanny attraction. In such a voice a sorceress of old might have crooned her incantations. Where did this girl get her soul, her passion, he wondered; she who was only just beginning life.

      He flung over an untidy pile of music, and dragged out the magnificently devilish "Enchantement" of Massenet. "Try this," he said abruptly. "It's your kind of song."

      For half-an-hour he exhorted, bullied and instructed, losing both his composure and his temper. Arithelli lost neither. "I don't understand music," she observed calmly. "But show me what to do and I'll do it. Mine's a queer voice, isn't it? A regular croak."

      "You've got a voice; yes, that's true, but you don't know how to produce it, and you've no technique. You want plenty of scales."

      "Wouldn't that take all the rough off, and make it just like anyone's voice?"

      Emile stared angrily at the exponent of such heresy, and was about to annihilate her with sarcasm, when he suddenly changed his mind. After all, she was right. It was what she called "the rough" that helped to make her voice unlike the voices of most women.

      "Is that your idea? A good excuse for being lazy! If you don't sing scales then you must work hard at songs."

      "Yes, I know." She put her hands behind her back and leant against the piano. "There was a man in Paris, a friend of the manager. He heard me sing once. He knew I wanted to take up a profession, and he offered to train me for nothing, and bring me out on the stage. I was to sing those queer, dramatic, half-monotone songs in which one almost speaks the words. He meant to write them specially for me, and I was to wear an oriental costume. He said that every other voice would sound fâde after mine."

      Emile glanced at her sharply, but her tone and manner was both absolutely void of conceit. "Well, why didn't you accept his offer?"

      "I don't know. I suppose because it was fated I should come here. He wanted me to make my début at the cafés chantants, but I didn't like the idea somehow. He said my voice was only fit for the stage, and would sound horrible in a room."

      Emile twisted his moustache upwards, and his eyebrows climbed in the same direction. "So! Do you think then that your life at the Hippodrome is going to be more what you English call respectable, than the cafés chantants?"

      "There are the horses here. If I don't like anything else I can always like them."

      Emile decided that the man in Paris had been apt in his judgment of this fantastic voice. Clever of him also to have noticed that she was Oriental. The setting of her green eyes was of the East. And horses were the only things she cared about—so far. Like most people whose lives are a complicated tangle of plots, Emile was not particularly interested in animals. His life, thoughts and environment were morbid, and the dumb creation too normal and healthy to appeal greatly to him. He discovered that his pupil was able to play in much the same inconsistent fashion that she sang. With a beautiful touch, full of temperament and expression, she possessed a profound ignorance of the rudiments of music. She could not read the notes, she said, but she could copy anything he played if she heard it two or three times. Emile found her astonishingly intelligent as well as amiable, and though the music lessons were not conducted on scientific principles, they produced good results.

      He would give her plenty of music with which to occupy herself till the time came when she would be fully occupied in serving the Cause. As he had said, there were no other female conspirators in their circle. Sobrenski, the red-haired leader, detested women, and thought them all fools, who generally added the sin of treachery to their foolishness. Emile himself had taken no interest in any woman since he had lived in Barcelona. He too had found them treacherous. Since he had lost his little childish goddess, Marie Roumanoff, he had had no desire to play the role of lover. If he wanted companionship he preferred men, for as companions women bored him.

      But Arithelli was not a woman—yet. She appeared able to keep own counsel, to do as she was told, and to judge by the way she rode, her courage would be capable of standing a severe test. Also it had occurred to him that she possessed the art of being a good comrade. It would amuse him to watch her develop. At present she was full of illusions about the charm of life in general. Everything for her showed rose-tinged. Well, it was not his business to dispel illusions. At present it was all "Le Rêve," but after the dream would come awakening. He took care to leave her very little alone during the first few days, and arranged her time according to his own ideas, and escorted her backwards and forwards from her rehearsals at the Hippodrome.

      When she was free he took her for long walks