Julio scarcely listened to his mother.

Ay! he, too, would stay.

So finally the imposing automobile lumbered toward the South carrying Dona Luisa, her sister who hailed with delight this withdrawal before the admired troops of the Emperor, and Chichi, pleased that the war was necessitating an excursion to the fashionable beaches frequented by her friends.
Don Marcelo was at last alone.

The two coppery maids had followed by rail the flight of their mistresses.

At first the old man felt a little bewildered by this solitude, which obliged him to eat uncomfortable meals in a restaurant and pass the nights in enormous and deserted rooms still bearing traces of their former occupants.