He knew concerning her only what his friend had told him. As to that distinguished functionary of the Czar’s court, her deceased husband, it was difficult to gather just what the nature of his services had been, perhaps because they had been so numerous! He had, it seemed, been Grand Marshal of the court; then again, he had been merely a general. But when it came to remarkable ancestry, no one could surpass Elena’s father. Torre Bianca delighted to repeat his wife’s statements concerning a host of personages of the Russian court, many of them great ladies, who had added the glory of a love affair with the Emperor to their other distinctions—yes, all these celebrities were relatives of Elena’s. He had never seen any of them because they had died a long time ago, or else they lived on their estates way off in Siberia somewhere.
Some of Elena’s allusions puzzled Robledo. She had never, so she told him, been in America, yet, one afternoon as they sipped their tea at the Ritz, she mentioned a trip through San Francisco when she was a little girl. On other occasions she would mention places in remote parts of the world, or persons well known in contemporary society as though she knew them intimately; and he never succeeded in finding out how many languages she knew.
“I speak everything!” had been her answer when Robledo asked her one day how many languages she could use. And her anecdotes made him wonder.... She had always “heard So-and-So tell this joke;” yet the engineer had his doubts about the real source of her rather daring stories.
“Where hasn’t this woman been?” he thought to himself. “Apparently she has lived a thousand lives in a few years. Can all this have happened when she was the wife of that Russian personage?”
His attempts to sound his friend on the subject of the Marquise had only one result. They showed that Torre’s confidence in his wife hedged him round like a thick wall of credulity. It was impossible to scale this wall or make the slightest breach in it. He would never discover the truth about Elena from her husband. But he did learn that since the day he had met her in London Torre knew nothing about his wife beyond what she herself had told him.
Of course, when he married her Federico must have seen some of the papers required for the civil ceremony.... But no, apparently he had not. The marriage had taken place in London, and had come off as rapidly as a film wedding. All that was needed was a minister to read the prayer book, a few witnesses, and some passports and papers, probably lent for the occasion.
But after awhile Robledo grew ashamed of his suspicions. Federico seemed happy and proud of his marriage. That gave his friend little right to interfere.... Besides, his suspicions might very well be due to the fact that he had lived too long in the woods. He had not yet adjusted himself to the complexities of life in Paris.
Elena was a woman of elegance, a woman of the kind he had never known before. It was his classmate’s marriage which made this unexpected friendship possible. And it was very natural that he should find in this new society things that seemed startling or even shocking. It had already happened to him on several occasions to consider as perfectly natural things that a few minutes earlier had seemed to him quite improper. Undoubtedly it was his lack of social experience that made him so suspicious.... And then, at a smile from Elena, at a caressing glance of her gold-flecked green eyes, he would express a trust and an admiration in no degree inferior to her husband’s.
Robledo was living near the Boulevard des Italiens in an old house which he had admired on one of his early visits to Paris. Then it had seemed to him the nearest approach to Paradise that an earthly building could make. Now however, he left it frequently to dine with Torre Bianca and his wife. Sometimes he was their guest in their luxurious home. Sometimes he played the host at some famous Paris restaurant.
Elena was pleased to have him come to the numerous teas she gave, so she could show him off to her friends. She took childish delight in opposing the wishes of the “Patagonian bear,” as she liked to call him, regardless of the fact that he always declared there were no bears to be found in the part of the world she attributed him to. He detested these occasions and Elena shamelessly resorted to ruses in order to get him to come.