Page 243 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

south—to Valparaiso or to San Francisco, no matter where.
Our Barrios has a great practice in exiles and repatriations,
which mark the points in the political game.’
Decoud, exchanging a steady stare with Mrs. Gould,
added, tentatively, as it were, ‘And yet, if we had could have
been done.’
‘Montero victorious, completely victorious!’ Mrs. Gould
breathed out in a tone of unbelief.
‘A canard, probably. That sort of bird is hatched in great
numbers in such times as these. And even if it were true?
Well, let us put things at their worst, let us say it is true.’
‘Then everything is lost,’ said Mrs. Gould, with the calm-
ness of despair.
Suddenly she seemed to divine, she seemed to see De-
coud’s tremendous excitement under its cloak of studied
carelessness. It was, indeed, becoming visible in his au-
dacious and watchful stare, in the curve, half-reckless,
half-contemptuous, of his lips. And a French phrase came
upon them as if, for this Costaguanero of the Boulevard,
that had been the only forcible language—
‘Non, Madame. Rien n’est perdu.’
It electrified Mrs. Gould out of her benumbed attitude,
and she said, vivaciously—
‘What would you think of doing?’
But already there was something of mockery in Decoud’s
suppressed excitement.
‘What would you expect a true Costaguanero to do? An-
other revolution, of course. On my word of honour, Mrs.
Gould, I believe I am a true hijo del pays, a true son of the

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard