"Ma foi! Ces femmes la! Il y a tou jours quelque chose! First a faint, then a heart! How often am I to tell you, Arithelli, that that part of your—your—how do you say it?—anatomy—is quite without use here? Have you any brandy in the room?"
"There's Eau de Cologne on the washstand."
He mixed water with the spirit and gave her a liberal dose that soon helped her to look less ghastly.
She lay back feeling almost comfortable, wishing Emile would see fit to depart, but Count Poleski returned again to the subject of her misbehaviour.
Like most men he was not at his best in the early morning, and the night's vigil had not improved his temper.
He sat scowling after his manner, black eyebrows meeting over grey eyes, hard as flint. "If you are going in for this kind of performance, what will be the use of you?" he enquired sarcastically.
Perhaps after all Sobrenski had been right in employing no women.
"Even the best machine will get out of order sometimes," the girl replied wearily.
"And when that happens one sets to work to find another machine to take its place."
"I didn't know about the horrors; you ought to have told me. It isn't fair."