Читать книгу The Temptress (La tierra de todos) онлайн

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“That will be more intimate,” she declared. “You will look like a page of olden times at the feet of his lady.”

Robledo could not altogether conceal his dismay at these words, but he obediently followed his hostess’s directions, although his own generous proportions were something of an obstacle.

The Countess meanwhile was imitating Elena’s childish gestures and lisping speech, with rather grotesque effect.

“Now that we are alone,” she was saying, “I hope you will speak freely with me. I am going to ask you the same question as before. What do you really think of love?”

Robledo, quite overwhelmed, murmured something about love’s being a disease from which the human race has been suffering for thousands of years, without growing any the wiser about its cause and cure.

The Countess was now very close to him, scanning him with her shortsighted eyes to which she held her shell-handled lorgnette. Leaning down over her vast girth, her cheek almost touched that of the man seated at her feet.

“And do you think that I shall ever find a soul to understand my own—so misunderstood?” she was asking him.