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me whether his talk is the voice of destiny or simply a bit
of clap-trap eloquence? There’s a good deal of eloquence of
one sort or another produced in both Americas. The air of
the New World seems favourable to the art of declamation.
Have you forgotten how dear Avellanos can hold forth for
hours here—?’
‘Oh, but that’s different,’ protested Mrs. Gould, almost
shocked. The allusion was not to the point. Don Jose was a
dear good man, who talked very well, and was enthusiastic
about the greatness of the San Tome mine. ‘How can you
compare them, Charles?’ she exclaimed, reproachfully. ‘He
has suffered—and yet he hopes.’
The working competence of men—which she never ques-
tioned—was very surprising to Mrs. Gould, because upon
so many obvious issues they showed themselves strangely
muddle-headed.
Charles Gould, with a careworn calmness which secured
for him at once his wife’s anxious sympathy, assured her
that he was not comparing. He was an American himself,
after all, and perhaps he could understand both kinds of
eloquence—‘if it were worth while to try,’ he added, grim-
ly. But he had breathed the air of England longer than any
of his people had done for three generations, and really he
begged to be excused. His poor father could be eloquent,
too. And he asked his wife whether she remembered a pas-
sage in one of his father’s last letters where Mr. Gould had
expressed the conviction that ‘God looked wrathfully at
these countries, or else He would let some ray of hope fall
through a rift in the appalling darkness of intrigue, blood-

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