But the enthusiasm which the letters from Germany breathed finally created an atmosphere of disquietude and rebellion.  Chichi led the attack.  Why were they not going to Europe like other folks? all their friends had been there.  Even the Italian and Spanish shopkeepers were making the voyage, while she, the daughter of a Frenchman, had never seen Paris! . . .  Oh, Paris.  The doctors in attendance on melancholy ladies were announcing the existence of a new and terrible disease, “the mania for Paris.”  Dona Luisa supported her daughter.  Why had she not gone to live in Europe like her sister, since she was the richer of the two?  Even Julio gravely declared that in the old world he could study to better advantage.  America is not the land of the learned.

Infected by the general unrest, the father finally began to wonder why the idea of going to Europe had not occurred to him long before.  Thirty-four years without going to that country which was not his! . . .  It was high time to start!  He was living too near to his business.  In vain the retired ranchman had tried to keep himself indifferent to the money market.  Everybody was coining money around him.  In the club, in the theatre, wherever he went, the people were talking about purchases of lands, of sales of stock, of quick negotiations with a triple profit, of portentous balances.  The amount of money that he was keeping idle in the banks was beginning to weigh upon him.  He finally ended by involving himself in some speculation; like a gambler who cannot see the roulette wheel without putting his hand in his pocket.

His family was right.  “To Paris!” For in the Desnoyers’ mind, to go to Europe meant, of course, to go to Paris.  Let the “aunt from Berlin” keep on chanting the glories of her husband’s country!  “It’s sheer nonsense!” exclaimed Julio who had made grave geographical and ethnic comparisons in his nightly forays.  “There is no place but Paris!” Chichi saluted with an ironical smile the slightest doubt of it—­“Perhaps they make as elegant fashions in Germany as in Paris? . . .  Bah!” Dona Luisa took up her children’s cry.  “Paris!” . . .  Never had it even occurred to her to go to a Lutheran land to be protected by her sister.

“Let it be Paris, then!” said the Frenchman, as though he were speaking of an unknown city.

He had accustomed himself to believe that he would never return to it.  During the first years of his life in America, the trip would have been an impossibility because of the military service which he had evaded.  Then he had vague news of different amnesties.  After the time for conscription had long since passed, an inertness of will had made him consider a return to his country as somewhat absurd and useless.  On the other side, nothing remained to attract him.  He had even lost track of those country relatives with whom his mother had lived.  In his heaviest hours he had tried to occupy his activity by planning