The enraptured buyer would permit no one but himself to adorn the walls with his new acquisitions, using the hammer from the top of a step-ladder in order to save the expense of a professional picture hanger.  He wished to set his children the example of economy.  In his idle hours, he would change the position of the heaviest pieces of furniture, trying every kind of combination.  This employment reminded him of those happy days when he handled great sacks of wheat and bundles of hides on the ranch.  Whenever his son noticed that he was looking thoughtfully at a monumental sideboard or heavy piece, he prudently betook himself to other haunts.

Desnoyers stood a little in awe of the two house-men, very solemn, correct creatures always in dress suit, who could not hide their astonishment at seeing a man with an income of more than a million francs engaged in such work.  Finally it was the two coppery maids who aided their Patron, the three working contentedly together like companions in exile.

Four automobiles completed the luxuriousness of the family.  The children would have been more content with one—­small and dashing, in the very latest style.  But Desnoyers was not the man to let a bargain slip past him, so one after the other, he had picked up the four, tempted by the price.  They were as enormous and majestic as coaches of state.  Their entrance into a street made the passers-by turn and stare.  The chauffeur needed two assistants to help him keep this flock of mastodons in order, but the proud owner thought only of the skill with which he had gotten the best of the salesmen, anxious to get such monuments out of their sight.

To his children he was always recommending simplicity and economy.  “We are not as rich as you suppose.  We own a good deal of property, but it produces a scanty income.”

And then, after refusing a domestic expenditure of two hundred francs, he would put five thousand into an unnecessary purchase just because it would mean a great loss to the seller.  Julio and his sister kept 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.