lena and her children kept looking at the other group as
though they had just waked up, contemplating them in an entirely new
light. They seemed to forget what they were going to receive in their
envy of the much larger share of their relatives.

Desnoyers, benevolent and conciliatory, had a plan. An expert in
administrative affairs, he realized that the distribution among the
heirs was going to double the expenses without increasing the income. He
was calculating, besides, the complications and disbursements necessary
for a judicial division of nine immense ranches, hundreds of thousands
of cattle, deposits in the banks, houses in the city, and debts to
collect. Would it not be better for them all to continue living as
before? . . . Had they not lived most peaceably as a united family? . . .

The German received this suggestion by drawing himself up haughtily.
No; to each one should be given what was his. Let each live in his own
sphere. He wished to establish himself in Europe, spending his wealth
freely there. It was necessary for him to return to "his world."

As they looked squarely at each other, Desnoyers saw an unknown Karl,
a Karl whose existence he had never suspected when he was under his
protection, timid and servile. The Frenchman, too, was beginning to see
things in a new light.

"Very well," he assented. "Let each take his own. That seems fair to
me."

CHAPTER III

THE DESNOYERS FAMILY

The "Madariagan succession," as it was called in the language of
the legal men interested in prolonging it in order to augment their
fees--was divided into two groups, separated by the ocean. The Desnoyers
moved to Buenos Aires. The Hartrotts moved to Berlin as soon as Karl
could sell all the legacy, to re-invest it in lands and industrial
enterprises in his own country.

Desnoyers no longer cared to live in the country. For twenty years,
now, he had been the head of an enormous agricultural and stock raising
business, overseeing hundreds of men in the various ranches. The
parcelling out of the old man's fortune among Elena and the other
legatees had considerably constricted the radius of his authority,
and it angered him to see established on the neighboring lands so many
foreigners, almost all Germans, who had bought of Karl. Furthermore,
he was getting old, his wife's inheritance amounted to about twenty
millions of dollars, and perhaps his brother-in-law was showing the
better judgment in returning to E