tan without courage
or reputation? Would you have a young man live like a monk? I do not
believe it. Would you want a monk for your eldest girl? Let her grow.
What are you afraid of? You have been angry with me for everything I did
for years; ever since you first spoke to me, in secret from old Giorgio,
about your Linda. Husband to one and brother to the other, did you say?
Well, why not! I like the little ones, and a man must marry some time.
But ever since that time you have been making little of me to everyone.
Why? Did you think you could put a collar and chain on me as if I were
one of the watch-dogs they keep over there in the railway yards? Look
here, Padrona, I am the same man who came ashore one evening and sat
down in the thatched ranche you lived in at that time on the other side
of the town and told you all about himself. You were not unjust to me
then. What has happened since? I am no longer an insignificant youth. A
good name, Giorgio says, is a treasure, Padrona."

"They have turned your head with their praises," gasped the sick woman.
"They have been paying you with words. Your folly shall betray you into
poverty, misery, starvation. The very leperos shall laugh at you--the
great Capataz."

Nostromo stood for a time as if struck dumb. She never looked at him. A
self-confident, mirthless smile passed quickly from his lips, and then
he backed away. His disregarded figure sank down beyond the doorway.
He descended the stairs backwards, with the usual sense of having been
somehow baffled by this woman's disparagement of this reputation he had
obtained and desired to keep.

Downstairs in the big kitchen a candle was burning, surrounded by the
shadows of the walls, of the ceiling, but no ruddy glare filled the open
square of the outer door. The carriage with Mrs. Gould and Don Martin,
preceded by the horseman bearing the torch, had gone on to the jetty.
Dr. Monygham, who had remained, sat on the corner of a hard wood table
near the candlestick, his seamed, shaven face inclined sideways, his
arms crossed on his breast, his lips pursed up, and his prominent eyes
glaring stonily upon the floor of black earth. Near the overhanging
mantel of the fireplace, where the pot of water was still boiling
violently, old Giorgio held his chin in his hand, one foot advanced, as
if arrested by a sudden thought.

"Adios, viejo," said Nostromo, feeling the handle of his revolver in the
belt and loosening his knife in its she