Swirling Waters. Max Rittenberg

Rivière on his side would not seek it, and the woman hesitated to ask him to take up the thread that lay waiting to his hand.

      A cold wind sprang up, and she descended and made her way to her hotel on the Place du Forum.

      At dinner in the deserted dining-room of his hotel, Rivière found himself seated at the next table to her. There are only two hotels worthy of the name in Arles, and the coincidence of meeting again was of the very slightest. Yet somehow he felt subconsciously that the arm of Fate was bringing their two lives together, and he resented it.

      The silence between them remained unbroken.

      In the evening he wrapped himself in a cloak against the bitter wind rushing down the valley of the Rhone and spreading itself as an invisible fan across the delta, and wandered about the dark alleys of the town, twisting like rabbit-burrows, lighted only here and there with a stray lamp socketed to a stone wall. Now he had left the big-thoughted age of the Romans, and was carried forward to the crafty, treacherous Middle Ages. In such an alley as this, bravos had lurked with daggers ready to thrust between the shoulder-blades of their victims. Now he was in a wider lane through which an army had swept pell-mell to slay and sack, while from the overhanging windows above desperate men and women shot wildly in fruitless resistance. Now he was in another of the lightless rabbit-burrows. …

      A sudden sharp cry of fear cut out like a whip-lash into the blackness. A woman's cry. There were sounds of angry struggle as Rivière made swiftly to the aid of that woman who cried out in fear.

      Stumbling round a corner of the twisting alley, he came to where a gleam from a shuttered window showed a slatted glimpse of a woman struggling in the arms of a lean, wiry peasant of the Camargue. Rivière seized him by the collar and shook him off as one shakes a dog from the midst of a fray. The man loosed his grip of the woman, and snarling like a dog, writhed himself free of Rivière. Then, whipping out a knife from his belt, he struck again and again. Rivière tried to ward with his left arm, but one blow of the knife went past the guard and ripped his cheek from forehead to jawbone.

      At that moment a shutter thrown open shot as it were a search-light into the blackness of the alley, full on to the man with the knife, and Rivière, putting his whole strength into the blow, sent a smashing right-hander straight into the face of his adversary. Thrown back against the alley-wall, the man rebounded forward, and fell, a huddled, nerveless mass, on the ground.

      From doorways near men came out with lights … there was a hubbub of noise … excited questions eddied around Rivière.

      But the latter made no answer. He turned to find the woman who had been attacked.

      "Mr. Rivière!"

      It was the woman who had stood by him on the topmost ledge of the amphitheatre, drinking in that glorious fiery sunset over the grey Camargue. She was flushed, but very straight and erect.

      "That brute was attacking me. Oh, if only I had had some weapon!" Then she noticed the blood dripping from the gash in his forehead, and cried out: "You're hurt! Take this."

      Her handkerchief was pressed into his hand. He answered as he took it: "It's nothing. Fortunately it missed the eye. And you?"

      "I'm not hurt, thanks. Oh, you were splendid! It makes one feel proud to be an Englishwoman."

      "Come to the hotel," he said, and ignoring the excited questioning of the knot of men, took her arm and led her rapidly to their hotel on the Place du Forum.

      "Let me dress your wound until the doctor can come."

      "I don't want a doctor," he replied coldly. A sudden aloofness had come into his voice.

      Her eye sought his with a piqued curiosity. For a moment, forgetting that here was a man who had rescued her from insult at considerable bodily risk, she saw him only as a man of curious, almost boorish brusqueness. Why this sudden cold reserve?

      Then, with a reddening of cheek at her momentary lapse from gratitude, she began to thank him for his timely help.

      Rivière cut her short. "There is nothing to thank me for. I didn't even know it was you. I heard a woman's cry—that was all. You ought not to go about these dark ruelles alone at night-time."

      They were at the door of their hotel by now.

      "Can't I dress the wound for you?" she asked. "I've had practice in first aid, Mr. Rivière."

      He paused suddenly in the doorway and asked her abruptly: "How do you know my name?"

      "I know more than your name. When your cut has been dressed, I'll explain in full."

      "Thank you, but I can manage quite well myself. Let us meet again in the salon in, say, half an hour's time."

      They parted in the corridor and went to their respective rooms.

      When they met again, he had his head bound up with swathes of linen. His face was white with the loss of blood, and she gave a little cry of alarm.

      "You were badly hurt!"

      "No; merely a surface cut. But please tell me what you know about me."

      There was a quick change in her to a smiling gaiety. The man was human again—he had at all events a very human curiosity.

      "The name was from the hotel register, naturally," she answered. "But I know also that you are on your way to Monte Carlo, which certainly can't come from the register."

      Rivière's face became coldly impassive as he waited for her to explain further.

      "You are a scientist," she continued slowly, watching him to note the effect of her words. "You are to meet a lady for the first time at Monte Carlo. Yet she knows you by your first name, John. You see that I know a good deal about you."

      She waited for him to question her further, but he remained silent, deep in thought.

      More than a little piqued that he would not question further, she gave him abruptly the solution of the riddle.

      "Two nights ago I travelled here from Paris in the same train with an Englishwoman and her father. They took breakfast at the table near to mine in the restaurant car, and I could scarcely help overhearing what they were saying. They chatted about you. Then I found your name in the hotel register."

      "But why did you look it up?" he challenged abruptly.

      She parried the question. "The name caught my eye by accident. Naturally I was interested by the coincidence."

      Rivière turned the conversation to the impersonal subject of Arles and its Roman remains, and soon after they said good-night.

      "Shall I see you at breakfast?"

      "I hope so," he answered.

      As she moved out of the room, a splendidly graceful figure radiating health and energy and life full-tide, Rivière could not help following her with his eyes. His innermost being thrilled despite himself to the magic of her splendid womanhood.

      It plucked at the strings of the primitive man within him.

      In his room that evening he took up the blood-drenched handkerchief. In the corner was the name "Elaine Verney." The name conveyed nothing to him. He threw the handkerchief away, and shut her from his thoughts. He wanted no woman in this new life of his.

      With the morning came a resolution to avoid her altogether. He rose very early and took the first train out of Arles.

      It took him to Nîmes.

CHAPTER VIII

       WHO AND WHERE IS RIVIÈRE?

       Table of Contents

      "Who is Rivière?"

      Here was a new factor in the situation. Lars Larssen mentally docketed it as a matter to