"You must let me go," she said. "I can't do any better now."
The Manager stepped back a pace, and dropped his whip with sheer
astonishment. For an instant he stared with open mouth, then he found
speech.
"You sit there, do you, and tell me you refuse to work! You with your
insolence! When you fall and that long neck of yours goes _crack_" (he
snapped a finger and thumb together in expressive pantomime), "then I
shall laugh--_nom d'un chien_!--how I shall laugh."
Arithelli waited in silence, a faint smile curling her lips. One hand,
laden with rings, moved caressingly up and down Don Juan's silky mane.
She had hitherto answered abuse with maddening indifference. Now she
flung back her head and mocked him.
"So you hope I'll fall," she said. "Perhaps I hope so too. Do you
think I care, that I'm afraid of breaking my neck?"
Her voice was not raised a tone from its ordinary level, but passion
and contempt vibrated in every accent. An unwilling admiration stirred
the man's dull brutality. He could dismiss her to-morrow, but he would
never find another woman who would be her match for physique and
endurance.
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