Page 239 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

‘Ah, you are going to meet the escort. I shall be on the
balcony at five o’clock to see you pass. Till then, good-bye.’
Charles Gould walked rapidly round the table, and, seiz-
ing her hands, bent down, pressing them both to his lips.
Before he straightened himself up again to his full height
she had disengaged one to smooth his cheek with a light
touch, as if he were a little boy.
‘Try to get some rest for a couple of hours,’ she mur-
mured, with a glance at a hammock stretched in a distant
part of the room. Her long train swished softly after her on
the red tiles. At the door she looked back.
Two big lamps with unpolished glass globes bathed in
a soft and abundant light the four white walls of the room,
with a glass case of arms, the brass hilt of Henry Gould’s
cavalry sabre on its square of velvet, and the water-colour
sketch of the San Tome gorge. And Mrs. Gould, gazing at
the last in its black wooden frame, sighed out—
‘Ah, if we had left it alone, Charley!’
‘No,’ Charles Gould said, moodily; ‘it was impossible to
leave it alone.’
‘Perhaps it was impossible,’ Mrs. Gould admitted, slowly.
Her lips quivered a little, but she smiled with an air of dain-
ty bravado. ‘We have disturbed a good many snakes in that
Paradise, Charley, haven’t we?’
‘Yes, I remember,’ said Charles Gould, ‘it was Don Pepe
who called the gorge the Paradise of snakes. No doubt we
have disturbed a great many. But remember, my dear, that it
is not now as it was when you made that sketch.’ He waved
his hand towards the small water-colour hanging alone

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard