Part 18 (1/2)

The sense of exile was almost gone, the nostalgia for his own land no longer keen. Had he turned traitor to his own country, the country for whose woes he was now suffering--?

There he had neither home, parents, friends nor lover. Here he possessed at least interests.

A rustling sound behind him made him turn quickly. In the gloom he could only see the outline of a white moving figure. He groped for the matches, struck one and lit a candle.

Arith.e.l.li sat upright in bed; she had pushed back the clothes, and her long fingers were dragging at the blue scarf. It was knotted at the back under her plait of hair, and she had almost succeeded in loosening it. The fatal inertia was pa.s.sed, and she was beside herself with heat and pain and the fight for breath.

A couple of strides brought Emile to the bedside. He caught her hands between his own and drew them down.

”Listen, Arith.e.l.li,” he said quietly. ”You mustn't do that. This is to cure your throat. It may hurt you now, but to-morrow you will be better, _voyez-vous_?”

The girl writhed in his grasp, turning her head from side to side. The wild eyes, the tense, quivering body, made Emile think of some forest animal in a trap.

The bandage had fallen from her throat and therefore was useless, and the aromatic scent of the crushed herbs was pungent in the air. He remembered Michael's injunction, ”See that she keeps it on. It's her only chance.”

She was still struggling frantically, and he needed both hands. For a moment he meditated tying her wrists together, but he decided to trust to his influence over her to make her do as he wished, she had always obeyed him hitherto, and he knew that she was perfectly conscious now, and capable of understanding what he wanted.

He set his teeth and tightened his grip, and spoke again in the same quiet voice.

”Look at me! That's right. Put your hands down, and keep them so.

You must not touch your throat.”

He held her eyes with his own as he spoke, and after a momentary struggle and shrinking she grew quiet, and he felt her body relax. Her eyes closed and she sank down against the pillow, turning her face towards him.

”_Pauvre enfant_!” Emile muttered.

He released her hands and they lay still, and she made no movement to hinder him as he re-adjusted the bandage.

He stood looking down upon her. A vast compa.s.sion shone in the grey eyes, that she had only seen hard and penetrating. The gesture of mute abandonment, the ready compliance had appealed to his complex nature, which he kept hidden under an armour of coldness and cynicism. For an instant his years of outlawry and poverty were blotted out and he had gone back to the days in Russia when he had first come into his kingdom, and had believed women faithful and their honour a thing on which to stake one's own.

As sweet and yielding Marie Roumanoff had seemed when she had lain in his arms. A few years hence if Arith.e.l.li did not succeed in breaking her neck in the ring, she would probably also make Paradise and h.e.l.l for some man.

He could see that the dangerous crisis was over. She would live and eventually go back to her work again. The swift intelligence, the wit and charm of her--_a quoi bon_? She had been saved, and to what end?

For a dangerous and toilsome profession, and, in secret, another and still greater peril.

Husband and children, and the average woman's uneventful, if happy, fate could never be hers. Her very beauty was of the type almost repellent to the strictly normal and healthy man.

She would no doubt have her hour of triumph, of pa.s.sion. Some _connoisseur_ of beauty would purchase her as a rare jewel is bought to catalogue among his treasures.

In Paris she might achieve notoriety. Not now, perhaps, but later when she had developed into a woman and knew her own power. Paris loved all things strange, and gave homage to the woman who was among her fellows as the orchid among flowers.

”_FATALITe_,” he had named her in jest. Truly a name to bring misfortune to any woman. Her fate had been in his own hands a few minutes ago. He could so easily have denied her her chance, her chance of life. Perhaps the time might come when she would reproach him for having helped her to live.

He thrust back the thought and stooped over her.

”_Mon enfant_, do you want anything to drink? You are thirsty, _n'est ce pas_?”

”Yes. And Emile--you won't--go away--yet?”