Page 206 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

Decoud talking publicly with Antonia in defiance of every
convention. And he not even her novio as far as the world
knew! Though, even in that case, it would have been scandal
enough. But the dignified old lady, respected and admired
by the first families, would have been still more shocked if
she could have heard the words they were exchanging.
‘Did you say I lost sight of the aim? I have only one aim
in the world.’
She made an almost imperceptible negative movement
of her head, still staring across the street at the Avellanos’s
house, grey, marked with decay, and with iron bars like a
prison.
‘And it would be so easy of attainment,’ he continued,
‘this aim which, whether knowingly or not, I have always
had in my heart—ever since the day when you snubbed me
so horribly once in Paris, you remember.’
A slight smile seemed to move the corner of the lip that
was on his side.
‘You know you were a very terrible person, a sort of Char-
lotte Corday in a schoolgirl’s dress; a ferocious patriot. I
suppose you would have stuck a knife into Guzman Bento?’
She interrupted him. ‘You do me too much honour.’
‘At any rate,’ he said, changing suddenly to a tone of bitter
levity, ‘you would have sent me to stab him without com-
punction.’
‘Ah, par exemple!’ she murmured in a shocked tone.
‘Well,’ he argued, mockingly, ‘you do keep me here writ-
ing deadly nonsense. Deadly to me! It has already killed my
self-respect. And you may imagine,’ he continued, his tone

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