CHAPTER V
"I have gained her! Her Soul's mine!"
BROWNING.
"You slouched last night in the ring, Fatalite," 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."
"Don Juan knows better! You see animals are usually more kind than
people."
She was too proud to admit that the long hours, hard work, and want of
proper food and sleep had lately given her furious backaches, which
were a thing unknown to her before, and a cause of bitter resentment.
She had a healthy distaste for illness either in theory or practice.
That night she sat Don Juan erect as a lance, passing Emile in his
accustomed place in the lower tier of seats with a shrug and scornful
eyebrows.
She had felt more than usually inclined to play the coward during the
last few weeks. The heat, worry and over-fatigue had begun, as they
must have done eventually, to affect her nerves. When she had felt
more than usually depressed and listless Emile had taken her to one of
the _cafes_ and given her _absinthe_ which had made her feel recklessly
well for the moment, and ten times more miserable the next day.
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