"Bon jour, Emile! You wanted me?"
He pointed to a chair.
"Sit down! Your hat is on crooked—as usual! Are you so little of a woman that you never use a mirror?"
A gleam of fun lit up her eyes.
"You covered mine up the other night with that horrible wreath and streamers. I can only see myself in little bits now."
"Well, sit down and I'll talk to you presently."
Emile returned to the sorting and destruction of his correspondence, and Arithelli lay back in her chair with a sigh of content, and closed her eyes. When she opened them again he was standing beside her with a glass of red wine in his hand.
"Drink this," he said, giving it to her.
"It isn't absinthe, is it?" she asked. "I can't see in this light, and I don't want—"
"It doesn't matter what it is or what you want. Don't argue, but finish it. How fond you women are of talking!" He waited till she had obeyed him.