s knife and fork, and began to eat with emphasis, as if on
the stage. Charles Gould made no pretence of the sort; with his elbows
raised squarely, he twisted both ends of his flaming moustaches--they
were so long that his hands were quite away from his face.

"I am not surprised," he muttered, abandoning his moustaches and
throwing one arm over the back of his chair. His face was calm with
that immobility of expression which betrays the intensity of a mental
struggle. He felt that this accident had brought to a point all the
consequences involved in his line of conduct, with its conscious
and subconscious intentions. There must be an end now of this silent
reserve, of that air of impenetrability behind which he had been
safeguarding his dignity. It was the least ignoble form of dissembling
forced upon him by that parody of civilized institutions which offended
his intelligence, his uprightness, and his sense of right. He was like
his father. He had no ironic eye. He was not amused at the absurdities
that prevail in this world. They hurt him in his innate gravity. He
felt that the miserable death of that poor Decoud took from him his
inaccessible position of a force in the background. It committed him
openly unless he wished to throw up the game--and that was impossible.
The material interests required from him the sacrifice of his
aloofness--perhaps his own safety too. And he reflected that Decoud's
separationist plan had not gone to the bottom with the lost silver.

The only thing that was not changed was his position towards Mr.
Holroyd. The head of silver and steel interests had entered into
Costaguana affairs with a sort of passion. Costaguana had become
necessary to his existence; in the San Tome mine he had found the
imaginative satisfaction which other minds would get from drama, from
art, or from a risky and fascinating sport. It was a special form of the
great man's extravagance, sanctioned by a moral intention, big enough to
flatter his vanity. Even in this aberration of his genius he served the
progress of the world. Charles Gould felt sure of being understood
with precision and judged with the indulgence of their common passion.
Nothing now could surprise or startle this great man. And Charles Gould
imagined himself writing a letter to San Francisco in some such words:
". . . . The men at the head of the movement are dead or have fled; the
civil organization of the province is at an end for the present;
the