Читать книгу The Temptress (La tierra de todos) онлайн

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Robledo caught a glimpse through the crowd of the Marquis de Torre Bianca and his wife, who had just come in, having spent the earlier part of the evening at another party. He noticed that Elena was talking mechanically, murmuring phrases that had no meaning, as though she were thinking of something else. Convinced that his chatter annoyed her, he went off in search of Federico, from whom he obtained little attention for the reason that the Marquis was very busy describing to someone he had just met the important undertakings that his friend Fontenoy was engaged in, in various parts of the globe.

Bored, and not yet quite clear as to the reason for his hostess’s sudden desertion, he sank into a large armchair, and almost at the same instant heard someone talking behind him. Not the two women gossips this time, but a man and a woman, who, seated on a divan, were repeating the same things he had overhead before, as though no two guests in that house could do anything else but gossip about the Countess. He paid little attention to what they were saying until suddenly he heard the name Torre Bianca. The woman was saying,