Page 104 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

stairs, and before he gave her the parting kiss he finished
the conversation—
‘What should be perfectly clear to us,’ he said, ‘is the
fact that there is no going back. Where could we begin life
afresh? We are in now for all that there is in us.’
He bent over her upturned face very tenderly and a lit-
tle remorsefully. Charles Gould was competent because he
had no illusions. The Gould Concession had to fight for life
with such weapons as could be found at once in the mire of
a corruption that was so universal as almost to lose its sig-
nificance. He was prepared to stoop for his weapons. For a
moment he felt as if the silver mine, which had killed his
father, had decoyed him further than he meant to go; and
with the roundabout logic of emotions, he felt that the wor-
thiness of his life was bound up with success. There was no
going back.

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