his arms around Desnoyers, moistening his neck with tears.
“He has taken her away! That son of a great flea . . . has taken her away!”
This time he did not lay all the blame on his China. He wept with her, and as if trying to console her by a public confession, kept saying over and over:
“It is my fault. . . . It has all been because of my very, very great sins.”
Now began for Desnoyers a period of difficulties and conflicts. The fugitives, on one of his visits to the Capital, threw themselves on his mercy, imploring his protection. The Romantica wept, declaring that only her brother-in-law, “the most knightly man in the world,” could save her. Karl gazed at him like a faithful hound trusting in his master. These trying interviews were repeated on all his trips. Then, on returning to the ranch, he would find the old man ill-humored, moody, looking fixedly ahead of him as though seeing invisible power and wailing, “It is my punishment—the punishment for my sins.”
The memory of the discreditable circumstances under which he had made Karl’s acquaintance, before bringing him into his home, tormented the old centaur with remorse. Some afternoons, he would have a horse saddled, going full gallop toward the neighboring village. But he was no longer hunting hospitable ranches. He needed to pass some time in the church, speaking alone with the images that were there only for him—since he had footed the bills for them. . . . “Through my sin, through my very great sin!”
But in spite of his self-reproach, Desnoyers had to work very hard to get any kind of a settlement out of the old penitent. Whenever he suggested legalizing the situation and making the necessary arrangements for their marriage, the old tyrant would not let him go on. “Do what you think best, but don’t say anything to me about it.”
Several months passed by. One day the Frenchman approached him with a certain air of mystery. “Elena has a son and has named him ‘Julio’ after you.”
“And you, you great useless hulk,” stormed the ranchman, “and that weak cow of a wife of yours, you dare to live tranquilly on without giving me a grandson! . . . Ah,
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