When she heard the street door shut Arithelli sat down, hiding her face in her hands. Once she shivered involuntarily. Directly she found herself alone the mask of her assumed nonchalance had fallen suddenly. As long as there was an audience she had worn a disguise on her soul as well as her body. She had been feeling moody and depressed all day, and this last episode was the climax. Everything she had was to be her own no longer. It was all to be for the Cause—even her green eyes! What power it possessed over these men. They admitted it to be a losing Cause, yet it was all they thought about, the sole thing for which they lived—and died. She had not thought it would be like this at first.
She remembered how gaily she had discoursed of Tolstoi and Prince Kropotkin, and of their writings which had revealed to her a new world. Her first interview with Sobrenski had shown the relentlessness of the man she was to serve. She felt that he would sacrifice all alike, men and women, to his idol, and would never stop to care whether the victim were willing or unwilling. The fact of her sex would gain her no consideration at his hands. Lately she had been impressed with the sensation of being surrounded by an impassable barrier drawn round her, a circle that was gradually becoming narrowed. She had begun to know that she was being incessantly watched. If Emile were occupied with the business of the Society, and could not fetch her from the Hippodrome himself, he never failed to send an understudy in the shape of one of his allies, generally one of the older men. When she emerged from the performers' entrance a silent figure would come forward to meet her. Often they exchanged no words throughout the walk home, but she was never left till her own door was reached.
If she went anywhere to please herself, to a shop, or to see Estelle, she was expected to give a full account of her doings. It was an understood thing that she should not go to the cafés or public gardens alone, nor speak to anyone not already known and approved by Emile. With all these conditions she had complied. Already one illusion had vanished. She had thought to find freedom in Barcelona.
She had indeed found "La Liberté."
But the Fates had chosen to be in an ironical mood, and while making the discovery she had herself become a slave. In all her day there was no hour that she could call her own.
CHAPTER V
"I have gained her! Her Soul's mine!"
BROWNING.
"You slouched last night in the ring, Fatalité," Emile said.
Arithelli flung up her head. "I didn't!"
"You looked like a monkey on a stick," proceeded Emile stolidly. "You were all hunched up. I wonder Don Juan didn't put you off his back on to the tan."