hey would send him further remittances.
A ranchman in Argentina, a sort of relative, was looking after his
affairs. Marguerite appeared satisfied, and in spite of her frivolity,
adopted the air of a serious woman.

"Money, money!" she exclaimed sententiously. "And yet there is no
happiness without it! With your four hundred thousand and what I have,
we shall be able to get along. . . . I told you that my husband wishes
to give me back my dowry. He has told my brother so. But the state of
his business, and the increased size of his factory do not permit him to
return it as quickly as he would like. I can't help but feel sorry for
the poor man . . . so honorable and so upright in every way. If he only
were not so commonplace! . . ."

Again Marguerite seemed to regret these tardy spontaneous eulogies which
were chilling their interview. So again she changed the trend of her
chatter.

"And your family? Have you seen them?" . . .

Desnoyers had been to his father's home before starting for the Chapelle
Expiatoire. A stealthy entrance into the great house on the avenue
Victor Hugo, and then up to the first floor like a tradesman. Then he
had slipt into the kitchen like a soldier sweetheart of the maids.
His mother had come there to embrace him, poor Dona Luisa, weeping and
kissing him frantically as though she had feared to lose him forever.
Close behind her mother had come Luisita, nicknamed Chichi, who always
surveyed him with sympathetic curiosity as if she wished to know better
a brother so bad and adorable who had led decent women from the paths
of virtue, and committed all kinds of follies. Then Desnoyers had been
greatly surprised to see entering the kitchen with the air of a tragedy
queen, a noble mother of the drama, his Aunt Elena, the one who had
married a German and was living in Berlin surrounded with innumerable
children.

"She has been in Paris a month. She is going to make a little visit to
our castle. And it appears that her eldest son--my cousin, 'The Sage,'
whom I have not seen for years--is also coming here."

The home interview had several times been interrupted by fear. "Your
father is at home, be careful," his mother had said to him each time
that he had spoken above a whisper. And his Aunt Elena had stationed
herself at the door with a dramatic air, like a stage heroine resolved
to plunge a dagger into the tyrant who should dare to cross the
threshold. The entire family was accustomed to submit