Скорбь сатаны / The sorrows of Satan. Уровень 4

“I must confess she is cold, but snow often covers volcanoes! She has good features, and a naturally clear complexion.”

“She is perfectly beautiful,” – I said emphatically. “The dullest eyes must see that. There is not a fault to be found with her. And she is wise and cold.”

“Geoffrey, there are no obstacles in the way of your wooing and winning her, if such is your desire. Geoffrey Tempest, millionaire, will be a welcome suitor. Poor Lord Elton’s affairs are in a bad way – he is almost ruined.

The American woman who is boarding with him…”

“Boarding with him!” I exclaimed.

Lucio laughed heartily.

“The Earl and Countess of Elton give the prestige of their home and protection to Miss Diana Chesney, the American, for the trifling sum of two thousand guineas per annum.”

“What a state!” I said, half angrily.

“Geoffrey, my friend, you are really amazingly inconsistent! Six weeks ago, what were you? A mere poor scribbler. Now, as millionaire, you think contemptuously of an Earl, because he is boarding an American heiress and launching her into society where she would never get without him.

And you aspire, or probably mean to aspire to the hand of the Earl’s daughter, as if you yourself were a descendant of kings!”

“My father was a gentleman,” I said, with hauteur, “and a descendant of gentlemen. We were never common folk.”

Lucio smiled.

“I do not doubt it, my dear fellow. But a simple �gentleman’ is below – or above – an Earl.

Which side will you choose? It really doesn’t matter nowadays. You occupy a good position, since you have money. And you do not know how it was made.”

“True!” I answered meditatively. Then, with a sudden flash of recollection I added,

“By the way I never told you that my deceased relative imagined that he had sold his soul to the devil, and that this vast fortune of his was the material result!”

Lucio laughed.

“No! Not possible!” he exclaimed derisively. “What an idea! Imagine any sane man believing in a devil! Ha, ha, ha! Well, well! The folly of human imaginations will never end! Here we are!”

He sprang lightly out as the brougham stopped at the Grand Hotel.

9

It was a fine frosty evening. At about eleven o’clock, we went to the private gambling club to which my companion had volunteered to introduce me as a guest.