Page 219 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

things for this harbour—this active usher-in of the mate-
rial implements for our progress. You have heard Captain
Mitchell confess over and over again that till he got this
man he could never tell how long it would take to unload
a ship. That is bad for progress. You have seen him pass by
after his labours on his famous horse to dazzle the girls in
some ballroom with an earthen floor. He is a fortunate fel-
low! His work is an exercise of personal powers; his leisure
is spent in receiving the marks of extraordinary adulation.
And he likes it, too. Can anybody be more fortunate? To be
feared and admired is—‘
‘And are these your highest aspirations, Don Martin?’ in-
terrupted Antonia.
‘I was speaking of a man of that sort,’ said Decoud, curt-
ly. ‘The heroes of the world have been feared and admired.
What more could he want?’
Decoud had often felt his familiar habit of ironic thought
fall shattered against Antonia’s gravity. She irritated him as
if she, too, had suffered from that inexplicable feminine ob-
tuseness which stands so often between a man and a woman
of the more ordinary sort. But he overcame his vexation
at once. He was very far from thinking Antonia ordinary,
whatever verdict his scepticism might have pronounced
upon himself. With a touch of penetrating tenderness in his
voice he assured her that his only aspiration was to a felicity
so high that it seemed almost unrealizable on this earth.
She coloured invisibly, with a warmth against which the
breeze from the sierra seemed to have lost its cooling power
in the sudden melting of the snows. His whisper could not

1 Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard