ably give you a daily beating."

For a while the ranch received numerous visitors. Some were young men of
the neighborhood who arrived on spirited steeds, performing all kinds of
tricks of fancy horsemanship. They wanted to see Don Julio on the most
absurd pretexts, and at the same time improved the opportunity to chat
with Chicha and Luisa. At other times they were youths from Buenos Aires
asking for a lodging at the ranch, as they were just passing by. Don
Madariaga would growl--

"Another good-for-nothing scamp who comes in search of the Spanish
ranchman! If he doesn't move on soon . . . I'll kick him out!"

But the suitor did not stand long on the order of his going, intimidated
by the ominous silence of the Patron. This silence, of late, had
persisted in an alarming manner, in spite of the fact that the ranch was
no longer receiving visitors. Madariaga appeared abstracted, and all the
family, including Desnoyers, respected and feared this taciturnity.
He ate, scowling, with lowered head. Suddenly he would raise his eyes,
looking at Chicha, then at Desnoyers, finally fixing them upon his wife
as though asking her to give an account of things.

His Romantica simply did not exist for him. The only notice that he ever
took of her was to give an ironical snort when he happened to see
her leaning at sunset against the doorway, looking at the reddening
glow--one elbow on the door frame and her cheek in her hand, in
imitation of the posture of a certain white lady that she had seen in a
chromo, awaiting the knight of her dreams.

Desnoyers had been five years in the house when one day he entered his
master's private office with the brusque air of a timid person who has
suddenly reached a decision.

"Don Julio, I am going to leave and I would like our accounts settled."

Madariaga looked at him slyly. "Going to leave, eh? . . . What for?" But
in vain he repeated his questions. The Frenchman was floundering through
a series of incoherent explanations--"I'm going; I've got to go."

"Ah, you thief, you false prophet!" shouted the ranchman in stentorian
tones.

But Desnoyers did not quail before the insults. He had often heard his
Patron use these same words when holding somebody up to ridicule, or
haggling with certain cattle drovers.

"Ah, you thief, you false prophet! Do you suppose that I do not know
why you are going? Do you suppose old Madariaga has not seen your
languishing looks and those of my dead fly of a