Page 141 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

nor Administrador appear by contrast twice as sunbaked,
more flaming red, a hundred times more intensely and si-
lently alive. Don Jose Avellanos touched elbows with the
other foreign diplomat, a dark man with a quiet, watchful,
self-confident demeanour, and a touch of reserve. All eti-
quette being laid aside on the occasion, General Montero
was the only one there in full uniform, so stiff with embroi-
deries in front that his broad chest seemed protected by a
cuirass of gold. Sir John at the beginning had got away from
high places for the sake of sitting near Mrs. Gould.
The great financier was trying to express to her his grate-
ful sense of her hospitality and of his obligation to her
husband’s ‘enormous influence in this part of the country,’
when she interrupted him by a low ‘Hush!’ The President
was going to make an informal pronouncement.
The Excellentissimo was on his legs. He said only a few
words, evidently deeply felt, and meant perhaps mostly
for Avellanos—his old friend—as to the necessity of unre-
mitting effort to secure the lasting welfare of the country
emerging after this last struggle, he hoped, into a period of
peace and material prosperity.
Mrs. Gould, listening to the mellow, slightly mournful
voice, looking at this rotund, dark, spectacled face, at the
short body, obese to the point of infirmity, thought that this
man of delicate and melancholy mind, physically almost a
cripple, coming out of his retirement into a dangerous strife
at the call of his fellows, had the right to speak with the au-
thority of his self-sacrifice. And yet she was made uneasy.
He was more pathetic than promising, this first civilian

1 0 Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard