Читать книгу The Temptress (La tierra de todos) онлайн

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The Marquis started up from his chair. He looked at his friend with pained surprise. “Alone?” Did Robledo dare suggest that he must abandon Elena? Why death was preferable! What torture, to wonder every moment what was becoming of her ...!

But Robledo, thoroughly irritated now, as always, by being opposed, exclaimed,

“Oh, Elena! Elena is—”

A glance at the Marquis made him drop his hostile tone.

“Elena is largely to blame for the situation you are in today, my friend! It was through her that you knew Fontenoy—and so, more or less directly, it was through her that you came to sign statements that mean nothing less than your professional disgrace.”

Federico shrank away, but Robledo went on mercilessly,

“How did your wife happen to know Fontenoy, anyway? You told me he was a friend of her family’s, but was that all you knew about him?”

For a moment he restrained himself only to burst out angrily,

“Women always know about us, and of them we know only what they choose to tell us....”

The Marquis looked confused. What was Robledo saying?