on
for a space in the ministerial cabinet, and the prominent man's passion
would end in a cynical shrug of the shoulders. After all, he seemed
to say, what did it matter as long as the minister himself was not
forgotten during his brief day of authority? But all the same, the
unofficial agent of the San Tome mine, working for a good cause, had
his moments of anxiety, which were reflected in his letters to Don Jose
Avellanos, his maternal uncle.

"No sanguinary macaque from Sta. Marta shall set foot on that part of
Costaguana which lies beyond the San Tome bridge," Don Pepe used to
assure Mrs. Gould. "Except, of course, as an honoured guest--for our
Senor Administrador is a deep politico." But to Charles Gould, in
his own room, the old Major would remark with a grim and soldierly
cheeriness, "We are all playing our heads at this game."

Don Jose Avellanos would mutter "Imperium in imperio, Emilia, my soul,"
with an air of profound self-satisfaction which, somehow, in a curious
way, seemed to contain a queer admixture of bodily discomfort. But that,
perhaps, could only be visible to the initiated. And for the initiated
it was a wonderful place, this drawing-room of the Casa Gould, with its
momentary glimpses of the master--El Senor Administrador--older, harder,
mysteriously silent, with the lines deepened on his English, ruddy,
out-of-doors complexion; flitting on his thin cavalryman's legs across
the doorways, either just "back from the mountain" or with jingling
spurs and riding-whip under his arm, on the point of starting "for the
mountain." Then Don Pepe, modestly martial in his chair, the llanero who
seemed somehow to have found his martial jocularity, his knowledge
of the world, and his manner perfect for his station, in the midst of
savage armed contests with his kind; Avellanos, polished and familiar,
the diplomatist with his loquacity covering much caution and wisdom in
delicate advice, with his manuscript of a historical work on Costaguana,
entitled "Fifty Years of Misrule," which, at present, he thought it was
not prudent (even if it were possible) "to give to the world";
these three, and also Dona Emilia amongst them, gracious, small,
and fairy-like, before the glittering tea-set, with one common
master-thought in their heads, with one common feeling of a tense
situation, with one ever-present aim to preserve the inviolable
character of the mine at every cost. And there was also to be seen
Captain Mitchell,