Don't you worry."
"Oh, I do worry. Every minute I'm in hell," she groaned. "Oh, Simeon, what
will become of me?"
"You'll be happy, and marry the man you love, my lady," the old man
soothed her, the red-rimmed eyes, which had once been handsome, sending
out a faint gleam of the one emotion that still burned in the ashes of his
wrecked soul: devotion to the woman who had saved his life, who had given
him a roof and food, and--above all--drink.
"I can never be happy again, whatever happens," Carmen said, with anguish.
"He loves some one else. He doesn't care for me."
"He'll learn to care. This slip of a thing that's come between you and
'im, my lady, will fly away out of his mind like a bit of thistledown.
When I'm done with her--she's got rid of for good."
"Oh, but the horror of it--the getting rid of her! It don't weaken one
bit, Simeon. I've brought her here for that, _just that_, and it shall be
done. In some moods, for a minute or two, I rejoice in the thought of it.
I want it. I'd even like to be there and see. Madame Vestris says that in
my last incarnation I was a Roman Empress--that I used to go to the
gladiator shows, and turn my thumb down, as a sign that the wounded ones
who failed in the fight were to be killed by their conquerors in the
arena.
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