Tziganes made wild, witch
music. At the _cafes_ people laughed and drank.
Suddenly Arithelli leant across the little table, raising her glass.
"To the Cause!" she whispered under her breath.
For an instant the two pairs of eyes flamed into each other; then those
of the man, hard and steel-grey, softened into something like
admiration. Their glasses clinked softly together. "To the Cause!" he
repeated. "_Mon Camarade_!"
CHAPTER IV
"These were things she came to know, and to take their measure,
When the play was played out so for one man's pleasure."
SWINBURNE.
A few days later, Arithelli was duly initiated, and given the badge of
the Cause, a massive buckle with a woman's figure, and on either side
the words _Honneur et Patrie_. At the suggestion of the leader Emile
had been made responsible for her behaviour. If she betrayed them in
any way his life was to pay forfeit. There was a fellow conspirator
working with her at the Hippodrome, a young Austrian of high rank named
Vardri. His father had turned him out of doors, penniless, because of
his political views; and he was now, half-starved, consumptive and
reckless, employed in harnessing the horses and attending to the
stables.
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