Perhaps, as she had told Vladimir, it was her love for him that had given her this gift of clear-seeing. Without love she might have allowed herself to be blindfolded as many other women are, by ambition, or money, or intellect.
CHAPTER XIV
"La vie est vaine,
Un peu d'amour,
Un peu de haine,
Et puis bon jour."
In the process of Arithelli's convalescence, comedy fought for place with tragedy.
For the first time in her life she felt irritable, and inclined to grumble, and her racked nerves made the lonely hours appear doubly long and lonely.
Day after day, each one seemingly more unending than the last, the sun poured into her room, and the dust and litter accumulated in all four corners, and she lay and gazed at the hideous meandering pattern of the stained wall-paper, and the cracks and blistering paint on the door. The nights were less terrible, for the darkness veiled all sordid details, and there was a star-lit patch of sky visible through the open window.
The attendance she received could only be described as casual. Neither Emile nor Maria possessed one idea on the subject of hygiene between them. The methods of the former were, as might be expected, a little crude, and Maria combined a similar failing with a vast ignorance. Moreover, she was not original. At the beginning of Arithelli's illness pineapple juice had seemed to Maria a happy inspiration, and she continued to provide it daily. What was good to drink on Sunday, she argued, must also be good on Monday.
Arithelli's throat had healed quickly, but the depression and weakness clung to her persistently. She fought it and was ashamed of it, true to her Spartan traditions, but was forced to realise that it was not in her own power to hurry her return to the world and work.
Michael Furness, who was much elated by the success of the Jewish herbalist's remedy, continued his treatment on the same lines, giving her various tisanes of leaves and flowers, which if they tasted unpleasant were at least harmless. He had grown fond of his patient, and she always looked for his visits with pleasure. He treated her with a genuine, almost fatherly kindness, and they were drawn together by the kin feeling of race, so strong among all Celts. In many respects Michael was not ideal as a medical attendant.
He smoked vile tobacco,—he dropped some things and knocked over others, he shaved apparently only on festas, and if he happened to arrive late in the day his speech was thick and his manner excitable.