room till he came to fetch her. If she went through the streets alone
there would be a row, and if she were late at the _rendezvous_ there
would also be a row.

"_C'est ainsi que la vie!_"

She lifted her thin shoulders after the manner of Emile and decided to
start at once. She wiped all the make-up from her face with a damp
towel, swaying a little as she stood before the glass.

The excitement of her reception and the ensuing episode had made her
heart beat at distressing speed.

"You're not ill," she adjured her pale reflection. "It's all
imagination. Emile says all these complaints are. Any way, you're not
going to give in to it."

She shut both ears and eyes as she sped through the restless city that
even at this hour was astir with life.

She was only glad that there was no moon. Roused for once out of her
naturally slow and indolent walk, she was soon in the poor quarter and
climbing the stairs to the third floor of a horrible little house, the
back of which looked out on the dark slums of the quarter of the
Parelelo, the breeding-place of revolutions; the district between the
Rambla and the Harbour.

The house was like the one that Emile had described when telling her of
the murdered woman, Felise Rivaz.

The very air reeked of intrigue and hidden deeds.

She looked round first of all for Emile, but he was not there, and only
half the usual number of conspirators were assembled.

Vardri, who had left the Hippodrome the minute he had delivered his
message, was sitting on the end of the table swinging his feet and
whistling softly.

He had bribed one of the "strappers" to finish his work, and slipped
out, only arriving a few minutes before her.

He had risked dismissal, but that was no great matter.

The Cause came first, and he feared danger for Arithelli, knowing that
if there was anything specially risky to be done she would be the one
chosen.

Sobrenski was always harder on her than on the others.

He watched her with the hungry, faithful eyes of an animal, and got up
from his seat with instinctive courtesy. Like all the rest he wore the
Anarchist badge, a red tie, and the hot, vivid colour showed up the
lines of ill-health and suffering about his eyes and mouth.

In spite of his disreputable clothes and wild hair, there still
remained in him the indefinable signs of breeding, in the thin, shapely
hands that rested on his knee, and in the modulations of his boyish and
eager voice.