eBooks Base 2000

She remembered those flashes
of triumph that left a fever in her veins--a fever that when it failed
must be stimulated by dissipation, by anything, by everything that
would keep her name a wonder in men's mouths, an envious fear to women.
She recalled her transfer to the strolling players; her cheap
pleasures, and cheaper rivalries and hatred--but always Teresa! the
daring Teresa! the reckless Teresa! audacious as a woman, invincible as
a boy; dancing, flirting, fencing, shooting, swearing, drinking,
smoking, fighting Teresa! "Oh, yes; she had been loved, perhaps--who
knows?--but always feared. Why should she change now? Ha, he should
see."
She had lashed herself in a frenzy, as was her wont, with gestures,
ejaculations, oaths, adjurations, and passionate apostrophes, but with
this strange and unexpected result. Heretofore she had always been
sustained and kept up by an audience of some kind or quality, if only
perhaps a humble companion; there had always been some one she could
fascinate or horrify, and she could read her power mirrored in their
eyes.


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