Page 241 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

‘What is it, Don Martin?’ asked Mrs. Gould. And then
she added, with a slight laugh, ‘I am so nervous to-day,’ as if
to explain the eagerness of the question.
‘Nothing immediately dangerous,’ said Decoud, who now
could not conceal his agitation. ‘Pray don’t distress yourself.
No, really, you must not distress yourself.’
Mrs. Gould, with her candid eyes very wide open, her
lips composed into a smile, was steadying herself with a lit-
tle bejewelled hand against the side of the door.
‘Perhaps you don’t know how alarming you are, appear-
ing like this unexpectedly—‘
‘I! Alarming!’ he protested, sincerely vexed and surprised.
‘I assure you that I am not in the least alarmed myself. A fan
is lost; well, it will be found again. But I don’t think it is here.
It is a fan I am looking for. I cannot understand how Anto-
nia could—Well! Have you found it, amigo?’
‘No, senor,’ said behind Mrs. Gould the soft voice of Basi-
lio, the head servant of the Casa. ‘I don’t think the senorita
could have left it in this house at all.’
‘Go and look for it in the patio again. Go now, my friend;
look for it on the steps, under the gate; examine every
flagstone; search for it till I come down again…. That fel-
low’—he addressed himself in English to Mrs. Gould—‘is
always stealing up behind one’s back on his bare feet. I set
him to look for that fan directly I came in to justify my re-
appearance, my sudden return.’
He paused and Mrs. Gould said, amiably, ‘You are always
welcome.’ She paused for a second, too. ‘But I am waiting to
learn the cause of your return.’

0 Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard