protesting to their mother, Dona Luisa--Chichi even going so far as to
announce that she would never marry a man like her father.

"Hush, hush!" exclaimed the scandalized Creole. "He has his little
peculiarities, but he is very good. Never has he given me any cause for
complaint. I only hope that you may be lucky enough to find his equal."

Her husband's quarrelsomeness, his irritable character and his masterful
will all sank into insignificance when she thought of his unvarying
fidelity. In so many years of married life . . . nothing! His
faithfulness had been unexceptional even in the country where many,
surrounded by beasts, and intent on increasing their flocks, had seemed
to become contaminated by the general animalism. She remembered her
father only too well! . . . Even her sister was obliged to live
in apparent calmness with the vainglorious Karl, quite capable of
disloyalty not because of any special lust, but just to imitate the
doings of his superiors.

Desnoyers and his wife were plodding through life in a routine
affection, reminding Dona Luisa, in her limited imagination, of the
yokes of oxen on the ranch who refused to budge whenever another animal
was substituted for the regular companion. Her husband certainly was
quick tempered, holding her responsible for all the whims with which he
exasperated his children, yet he could never bear to have her out of his
sight. The afternoons at the hotel Drouot would be most insipid for him
unless she was at his side, the confidante of his plans and wrathful
outbursts.

"To-day there is to be a sale of jewels; shall we go?"