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Updated: June 12, 2025
If Vardri was to have a fair start she must wait out the hour alone, realising every moment of the time what awaited her at the end of it. A mad impulse seized her to rush up the steps to the loft, interrupt the meeting, defy them all and boast how she had schemed her lover's escape, and laugh at them and their plots, goad them into shooting her at once and finishing it all quickly.
Her friend the toothless lion had succumbed to old age, several of the helpers had been changed, and Vardri was no longer near at hand to lift her on to her horse and wait to help her dismount. Whenever he could get away from Vladimir and the newspaper office, he was among the spectators, and their thoughts and glances met across the wide arena's space.
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.
Long before half-past eight he was down at the stables and there received the dismissal he had fully expected, being ordered off the premises by the head groom, who had received directions the night before to give Vardri a week's wages, and turn him out of the place without delay. It was no use protesting. The Manager was not yet visible, and even if he had been Vardri knew there was no appeal.
"And I have to go back to it," the girl said under her breath. "And I may be hissed again. You will not be there now, and we shall miss you. I and Don Juan and Cavaliero, and El Rey, and Don Quixote. Some of the grooms are horrible, and the animals get so badly treated." "It seems to me that everything gets badly treated here," Vardri muttered. "Women and horses, it's all the same.
Vardri strolled across to a rack, and took down an armful of saddles and stirrups. "I have," he answered laconically. "They'll be ready in five minutes." Sobrenski turned to the girl, and spoke to her in an undertone. "What are you wasting time for? See to your work." Vardri raised his head from the adjustment of a girth. "I'm doing Mademoiselle Arithelli's work.
The fragment of the letter that Arithelli had dropped, lay open in front of him. He read it through again and smiled to himself. "I'll give up even the Cause for your sake," Vardri had written. "Seeing how these men have made you suffer has changed my views. There must be something wrong about our ideas if they produce this cruelty to women. Sobrenski and the others are killing you slowly.
The ring-master was only a few feet away, and they could never be certain as to who was to be trusted. Vardri stood looking after her as she walked away with her head well up and her shoulders thrown back as usual. The two had become good friends with the comradeship induced by the similarity in their misfortunes.
After what Arithelli had confessed it would be dangerous for them both if he stayed. For a moment the primaeval man in him leapt up, telling him that he had only to pit himself against Vardri, and the victory would be assuredly his own. His rival was only a boy, and Emile knew that if there came the struggle between male and male, the odds were all in his own favour.
"Done?" he echoed contemptuously. "Nothing so far. He has only talked and written. It is to provide against his doing anything important that the Committee have decided upon his removal. There was a meeting held last night and the voting was unanimous. Vardri has been condemned as a traitor to his vows, and a danger to everyone connected with our work."
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