Part 14 (1/2)
She had been clumsy, ungraceful, had failed--that was enough.
Arith.e.l.li herself scarcely heard the sounds of execration, as she stood swaying with one hand over her eyes to shut out the horrible glare.
She was conscious only of that and the strident noise of the band, and the sensation of choking she had felt once before. The instinct of all animals to hide themselves in the dark when ill, was strong upon her.
The fat little ring-master who alone had the sense to see there was something wrong, advanced and spoke to her in an agitated whisper. She gave him her hand and he led her out, leaving her hurriedly to go back and apologise to the irate spectators, and to claim their indulgence on the score of her sudden faintness.
Would she ever get to her room, Arith.e.l.li wondered, as she struggled down the pa.s.sage. It had never seemed so long before. Her hand went up to her throat again. She longed for something cool to drink to relieve the aching and dryness. It must be caused by the heat and dust of the ring, she thought.
A man's voice sounded behind her, and then hurrying footsteps. She pulled her long blue cloak round her and went on without answering or turning her head. It could only be the Manager coming to upbraid her.
An arm was flung round her protectingly and she turned with the face of a hunted animal, and looked up into the wild dark eyes of Vardri.
”What has happened? You're ill! It's no wonder. _Mon Dieu_, those brutes last night . . .”
He pulled her head back against his shoulder, dropping his voice to a murmur of exquisite gentleness. ”_Mon enfant--ma pet.i.te enfant_!”
”You saw me fall?” she whispered.
”The men told me when they brought Don Juan out. I didn't see what happened. Were you hurt or only faint?”
”Oh, my hand? That's nothing. Emile says it will heal in a day or two. But I felt so stupid. . . . Vardri, you don't think I'm going to be ill, do you? I've never been ill in my life . . . never!”
The boy made some incoherent answer. Her piteous entreaty tore at his heart. Every fibre in his starved body ached with the desire to give her the rest and peace she needed above all things.
What could he do without money? His own miserable wages barely served for necessities. He was only a useless vagabond, an outcast. He ground his teeth together at the thought of his own impotence.
”Courage, little one. They will cheer you again to-morrow. They are cruel, these Spaniards, and fickle. You must not care.”
It did not seem strange to either of them that he should be holding her in his arms. After last night everything had changed. Love, Youth, and Nature were hard at work weaving the bonds that drew them together.
The fact that she suffered his caresses had given him the right of manhood to protect her, to be her champion, to fight her battles. If he could do nothing else for her, at least he could fight. For him the crown of happiness could be found in loyal service. Of love-making in its ordinary sense, Vardri neither thought nor dreamed. To have found his Ideal, the one woman, surely that was enough. The innate fastidiousness that goes with good breeding had kept his life clean, his hands unsoiled.
He had hated the other women in the Circus, and felt sorry for them at the same time; and on their side they liked him and regarded him somewhat as a fool. Their voices, their coa.r.s.e expressions, their light jokes all jarred on him.
He pitied them, for their lives were as hard as his own, and when he could he helped them, for among the wanderers in Bohemia there is an ever-abiding comrades.h.i.+p. The element of fanaticism in his nature, which had once been absorbed by the Cause, now spent itself upon a human being.
The firm yet gentle clasp in which he held her, was the outward symbol of the love and courage that made him tense as steel. To every man there comes his hour, and his was now. Both for her sake and his own he dare not keep her with him. That they had been left undisturbed so long was a miracle. Besides, as she was ill, the sooner she was in bed the better.
He half led, half carried her to the door of her dressing room, and she thanked him with a smile, a gesture. Her throat hurt so much that all speech was an effort.
”You must go now,” she whispered. ”You will get into trouble again through me.”
The boy threw a quick furtive glance along the whitewashed pa.s.sage.
With characteristic recklessness he had forgotten that the chances of his summary dismissal were looming exceedingly near.
He had left half his work undone the previous night, he had appeared late that morning, and now he was in a part of the building to which all the grooms and stable helpers were forbidden entrance.