y were now on a different footing.
Tantalizingly she dangled the purse under his nose as he brought her
absinthe--always this opalescent absinthe. She drank it in the morning,
in the afternoon, at night. She seldom spoke save to Ambroise. And
he--he no longer saw scarlet, for the glorious tone of her hat and gown
had vanished. They were rusty red, a carroty tint. Her face was like the
mask of La Buveuse d'Absinthe, by Felicien Rops; her eyes, black wells
of regard; her hair without lustre, and coarse as the mane of a horse.
Aholibah no longer manifested interest in the life of Paris. She did not
read or gossip. But she still had money to spend.

The night he quarrelled with his new patron, Ambroise was not well. All
the day his head had pained him. When he reached La Source, the dame at
the cashier's desk told him that he was in for a scolding. He shrugged
his thin shoulders. He didn't care very much. Later the prophesied event
occurred. He had been much too attentive to the solitary woman who drank
absinthe day and night. The patron did not propose to see his
establishment, patronized as it was by the shining lights of medicine--!

Ambroise changed his clothes and went away without a word. He was weary
of his existence, and a friend who shared his wretched room in the Rue
Mouffetard had apprised him of a vacant job at a livelier resort, the
Cafe Vachette, commonly known as the Cafe Rasta. There he would earn
more tips, though the work would be more fatiguing. And--the Morocco
Woman might not follow him. He hurried away.

III

AVERNUS

She sat on a divan in the corner when he entered the Vachette for the
first time. He said nothing, nor did he experience either a thrill of
pleasure or disgust. The other waiters assured him that she was an old
customer, sometimes better dressed, yet never without money. And she was
liberal. He took her usual order, but did not speak to her, though she
played with the purse as if to tempt him--it had become for him a symbol
of their lives. A quick glance assured him that the amethyst had
disappeared. She was literally drinking _his_ gift away in absinthe. The
spring passed, and Ambroise did not regain his former health. His limbs
were leaden, his head always heavy. The alert waiter was transformed. He
took his orders soberly, executed them soberly,--he was still a good
routinier; but his early enthusiasm was absent. Something had gone from
him that night; as she went to her carriag