s tone to melt a heart of ice. Antonia turned away
abruptly, as if to carry his whispered assurance into the room behind,
full of light, noisy with voices.

The tide of political speculation was beating high within the four walls
of the great sala, as if driven beyond the marks by a great gust of
hope. Don Juste's fan-shaped beard was still the centre of loud and
animated discussions. There was a self-confident ring in all the
voices. Even the few Europeans around Charles Gould--a Dane, a couple
of Frenchmen, a discreet fat German, smiling, with down-cast eyes, the
representatives of those material interests that had got a footing in
Sulaco under the protecting might of the San Tome mine--had infused a
lot of good humour into their deference. Charles Gould, to whom they
were paying their court, was the visible sign of the stability that
could be achieved on the shifting ground of revolutions. They felt
hopeful about their various undertakings. One of the two Frenchmen,
small, black, with glittering eyes lost in an immense growth of bushy
beard, waved his tiny brown hands and delicate wrists. He had been
travelling in the interior of the province for a syndicate of European
capitalists. His forcible "_Monsieur l'Administrateur_" returning every
minute shrilled above the steady hum of conversations. He was relating
his discoveries. He was ecstatic. Charles Gould glanced down at him
courteously.

At a given moment of these necessary receptions it was Mrs. Gould's
habit to withdraw quietly into a little drawing-room, especially her
own, next to the great sala. She had risen, and, waiting for Antonia,
listened with a slightly worried graciousness to the engineer-in-chief
of the railway, who stooped over her, relating slowly, without the
slightest gesture, something apparently amusing, for his eyes had a
humorous twinkle. Antonia, before she advanced into the room to join
Mrs. Gould, turned her head over her shoulder towards Decoud, only for a
moment.

"Why should any one of us think his aspirations unrealizable?" she said,
rapidly.

"I am going to cling to mine to the end, Antonia," he answered, through
clenched teeth, then bowed very low, a little distantly.

The engineer-in-chief had not finished telling his amusing story.
The humours of railway building in South America appealed to his keen
appreciation of the absurd, and he told his instances of ignorant
prejudice and as ignorant cunning very well. Now, Mrs. Gould