The Temptress (La tierra de todos‪)‬

AS usual the Marquis de Torre Bianca got up late. Leaving the security of his bedroom, he cast an uneasy glance at the letters and newspapers waiting for him on a silver salver in the library. Some of the postmarks were foreign. At sight of these he breathed a sigh of relief. That much respite at least.... But some of the letters were from Paris; and at these he frowned. He knew what they would be like. They would be long and full of unpleasant allusions, to say nothing of reproaches and threats.... He noted uncomfortably the addresses printed on some of the envelopes, and at their names, his creditors appeared before him, an indignant and vociferous crowd.... Alas! He knew what was in those letters.

If they had only been addressed to his wife! She received letters like that with the utmost serenity, as though debts and clamorous creditors were her native element—“The Fair Elena” her friends called her, acknowledging a beauty which couldn’t be denied, but which her women friends liked to allude to as “historic”—it had lasted so long. The Marquis, however, had a more antiquated conception of honor than the historically fair Elena. He went so far as to believe that it is better not to contract debts if there is no possibility of paying them.

Fearful lest the servant should find him still dubiously eyeing his mail, the Marquis began opening his letters.... After all, they were not so bad! One was from the firm which had sold the Marquise her most recently acquired automobile. Of the ten installments to be paid, it had collected only two.... And there were numerous other letters from shops that supplied the Marquise with her needs. From her establishment near the Place Vendome her debts had reached out and permeated the neighborhood. The maintenance, to say nothing of the comfort, of the establishment, necessitated the services of innumerable tradespeople.

The servants had just as good a reason to write him letters as the tradespeople. But instead they relied upon the worldly arts of the Marquise to provide them with a means of compensating themselves for long unpaid services. So they expressed their disgust by a reluctant and unbending attitude in the discharge of their duties.

The Marquis was wont, when he had finished the perusal of his morning mail, to look about him with something very like alarm. There was his Elena, giving parties and going to all the most distinguished festivities in Paris; occupying the most desirable apartment of an elegant house on a fashionable street, keeping a luxurious automobile, and never less than five servants. By what mysterious adjustments and manoeuvres could his wife and he keep up this manner of life? Every day there were new debts; every day they required more money for perpetually increasing expenses. Whatever funds he had disappeared like a river in the sand. And yet Elena seemed to consider this manner of living reasonable and proper, just as though it were that of all her friends.