Whereupon he glanced at Robledo in an attempt to discover whether he had succeeded in whetting the Spaniard’s curiosity, and whether it would be safe for him to go on....
“The Marquis is a good fellow enough. You must know him pretty well. Fontenoy has given him a fairly important job. He is well aware of Torre Bianca’s good qualities ... and....”
Robledo sensed that his escort was on the point of saying something which it would be impossible for him to accept in silence. He called to a passing taxi, murmured something about a forgotten engagement, and made haste to be rid of the spiteful sycophant.
In his conversation with Torre Bianca, the latter always took up, sooner or later, the subject that obsessed him. He needed so much money to keep up his social position!
“You have no idea how much a wife costs, my dear fellow! Winters at the Riviera, summers at fashionable watering places, trips to famous resorts in the spring and fall, all that costs something....”
Robledo always received these outbursts with expressions of sympathy; but there was an ironic note in them which exasperated Torre.
“Of course anyone who can get along without women is free to assume that superior air of yours, my dear boy. That’s what people usually do who know nothing about love....”
Robledo turned white, and the smile that usually played about his lips vanished. So, he knew nothing about love.... Something stirred in his memory....
Torre Bianca knew very little of his friend’s early experiences. The Marquis had a vague impression that Robledo’s sweetheart had married someone else, or maybe she had died.... Anyway something had happened, and he suspected that Robledo had, as a consequence of it, vowed never to marry.... Yet who would suspect that this well-fed, practical, and ironical friend of his bore a wound that the years had not yet been able to heal?
But, as though fearful that his friend might possibly think of him as “romantic,” Robledo hastened to smile sceptically.