Struve told me most of this story as we sat one day before a café on the boulevards.
“That is the man,” he said, indicating a good-looking young fellow on a coal-black horse, who was riding by, accompanied by a girl with auburn hair, mounted on a magnificent gray; “that is Toto.”
“But the girl?”
“His wife, the Princesse; she was Helen Powers.”
“But surely—is she married to him?”
“Very much so. He confessed all his sins, and she gave him absolution. No woman, you see, can withstand a confession of folly; you see, it is a far more genuine thing than a confession of love—with ordinary men.”
“You do not think Toto an ordinary man?”
“I have never thought of him as a man. Come, it is five o’clock; I am tired of sitting still.”
“A moment. Where has old De Nani gone to?”
“He is living at Monte Carlo. He lost a hundred thousand francs there, and they have pensioned him; they give him sixty francs a week, I believe.”