"And what of you?" Emile retorted in great wrath. "You with your
French all soft, soft like oil!"

"Yes, that's the Irish half of me."

"And your Italian so _rauque_ so hard--!"

"That's the Jewish half of me. Oh, don't let's quarrel! I do want to
learn to sing properly."

"Then don't fold your arms," her instructor said sharply. "I suppose
you think it looks dramatic, but how can you learn to sing what you
call 'properly,' with your chest all crushed up like that?"

CHAPTER VI

"When I look back on the days long fled,
The memory grows still dreamier.
Oh! what fantastic lives they led,
Far away in Bohemia.

"There were laws that were only made to break,
In a world that never seems half awake
Till the lamps were lit--there were souls at stake.
Far away in Bohemia."
DOLF WYLLARDE.

Barcelona in August was like the Hell to which Emile likened it.

The rich escaped from the heat to their villas up in the mountains,
those whom business, or lack of money, kept in the city, existed in a
parched and sweltering condition. Arithelli still kept her place among
the performers at the Hippodrome, though after the fashion of circus
artists her name had been changed.

She was now "Madame Mignonne" from Paris, and wore a golden wig, and
came on the stage riding a lion in the character of a heathen goddess
in the spectacular display which always ended the performance.

She pined for the _haute ecole_ and trick riding in which she so
excelled, and felt unholy pangs when she saw her beloved white horses
being driven in a chariot by a fat, vulgar English woman, arrayed in
scanty pink tunic and tights.

She was not afraid of the lion, who was old and toothless enough to be
absolutely safe, but her new role was not a great success.

The golden hair did not suit her any better than did the classical
draperies, and she grew daily thinner. As a matter of fact she was
practically going through the process of slow starvation.

She had never, even in her healthily hungry days, been able to eat the
abominable Spanish dishes--meat floating in oil, and other things which
she classed together under the heading of _cochonneries_.

She generally lived on fruit, a little black bread, coffee, and
_absinthe_.

Emile would try and bully her into eating more, and occasionally
essayed his talents as a _chef_, and cooked weird looking things in his
rooms over a vilely smelling English oi