Robledo remonstrated, more in gestures than words, at this accusation; but as Elena was pleased to make herself out the victim of an unjust antipathy on the part of the two business associates, the Spaniard finally replied,
“Watson and I are your husband’s friends, and on his account it alarms us to see how lightly you arouse certain equivocal hopes in all these men who come to see you.”
Elena began to laugh, as if pleased by Robledo’s words, and the grave tone in which he uttered them.
“You needn’t worry about that. A woman of experience, who knows the world as I know it, isn’t likely to compromise herself with any of these people you speak of.”
And she cast an ironic glance at her three admirers who were still sitting beside her husband.
“Of course I do not allow myself to make any suppositions,” Robledo continued in the same tone, “I simply see the present, just as in Paris I saw ... and I am a little worried about the future.”
Elena could not decide, as she looked at the engineer, whether to continue to treat the subject lightly or to become angry. Finally she took up the dialogue again with the grave expression of one who has been offended by the tone of the discussion.
“I do not think myself either better or worse than other women. It is simply that I was born to live in luxury, and I have never in my whole life met anyone able to give me all that I wanted.”
During a long pause they looked at one another; then she added,
“The men who wanted to win me could never give me all that I need in life; and those who might have satisfied my desires never noticed me.”