The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Hippodrome, by Rachel Hayward

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Title: The Hippodrome

Author: Rachel Hayward

Release Date: November 28, 2006 [eBook #19943]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIPPODROME***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

HIPPODROME

by

RACHEL HAYWARD

George H. Doran Company
New York
Copyright, 1913,
By George H. Doran Company

TO

EDYTH AND ARTHUR APPLIN

WITH LOVE AND HOMAGE.

"Car vois-tu chaque jour je t'aime davantage,
Aujourd'hui plus qu'hier, et bien moins que demain."
(_Rosemonde Rostand_)

THE HIPPODROME

CHAPTER I

"Aujourd'hui le primtetemps, Ninon, demain l'hiver.
Quoi! tu nas pas l'etoile, est tu vas sur la mer!"
DE MUSSET.

Count Emile Poleski was obliged to be at the Barcelona Station at five
o'clock in the afternoon one hot Friday in May. His business, having
to do with that which was known to himself and his associates as "the
Cause," necessitated careful attention, and required the performance of
certain manoeuvres in such a way that they should be unobserved by the
various detectives to whom he was an object of interest.

He looked round, scowling, till he found the man he wanted, and who was
to all outward appearances the driver of one of the row of _fiacres_
that waited outside the station. Cigarettes were exchanged, and a tiny
slip of paper passed imperceptibly from hand to hand, then he turned
ostensibly to watch the incoming train from Port-Bou. As he was on the
platform it would be better to look as if he had come to meet someone,
and as he had nothing particular to do just then it would make a
distraction to watch the various types of humanity arriving at this
continental Buenos Ayres, the city of romance, anarchy, commerce and
varied vices.

Emile Poleski called it _l'entresol de l'enfer_, and certainly he was
not there by his own choice. It was the centre of intrigue, and to
intrigue his life, intellect, and the little money he had left from his
Polish estates, were devoted. To him life meant "The Cause," and that
exigeant mistress