"
"It's that damned Englishman who has spoiled her."
"Ah, yes, those English! I know them."
"Did I tell you what she said about the boy?"
"Yes, my friend. But as long as you don't worry her, her words need not
worry you."
"They don't, except sometimes at night. I wake up and remember them, and
then I am afraid."
"Why do you hate the Englishman? To my mind it is lucky for both of you
that this Englishman saw her. There are not men so rich as the English,
and he is a rich Englishman. You are lucky."
"I hate him."
"Because he has stolen your wife's love?" Madam Marx, as she put
the question, laid her fat hand upon Gregorio's shoulder and laughed
confidently. The movement irritated him, but he never tried to resist
her now.
"No, not quite that. I'm used to it, and the money more than compensates
me. But I hated the man when I first saw him in the Paradise. There
was a fiddler-woman he talked to, and he could scarcely make himself
understood. He had money, and he gave her champagne and flowers. And I
was starving, and the woman was beautiful."
Madam tapped his cheek and smiled.
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