Читать книгу The Temptress (La tierra de todos) онлайн

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The servants had just as good a reason to write him letters as the tradespeople. But instead they relied upon the worldly arts of the Marquise to provide them with a means of compensating themselves for long unpaid services. So they expressed their disgust by a reluctant and unbending attitude in the discharge of their duties.

The Marquis was wont, when he had finished the perusal of his morning mail, to look about him with something very like alarm. There was his Elena, giving parties and going to all the most distinguished festivities in Paris; occupying the most desirable apartment of an elegant house on a fashionable street, keeping a luxurious automobile, and never less than five servants. By what mysterious adjustments and manoeuvres could his wife and he keep up this manner of life? Every day there were new debts; every day they required more money for perpetually increasing expenses. Whatever funds he had disappeared like a river in the sand. And yet Elena seemed to consider this manner of living reasonable and proper, just as though it were that of all her friends....