Page 565 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

eyes and temples of the ‘Never-tired Senora’ (as Don Pepe
years ago used to call her with admiration), touched him
almost to tears. ‘Don’t go yet. To-day is all my own,’ Mrs.
Gould urged, gently. ‘We are not back yet officially. No one
will come. It’s only to-morrow that the windows of the Casa
Gould are to be lit up for a reception.’
The doctor dropped into a chair.
‘Giving a tertulia?’ he said, with a detached air.
‘A simple greeting for all the kind friends who care to
come.’
‘And only to-morrow?’
‘Yes. Charles would be tired out after a day at the mine,
and so I——It would be good to have him to myself for one
evening on our return to this house I love. It has seen all
my life.’
‘Ah, yes!’ snarled the doctor, suddenly. ‘Women count
time from the marriage feast. Didn’t you live a little be-
fore?’
‘Yes; but what is there to remember? There were no
cares.’
Mrs. Gould sighed. And as two friends, after a long
separation, will revert to the most agitated period of their
lives, they began to talk of the Sulaco Revolution. It seemed
strange to Mrs. Gould that people who had taken part in it
seemed to forget its memory and its lesson.
‘And yet,’ struck in the doctor, ‘we who played our part
in it had our reward. Don Pepe, though superannuated, still
can sit a horse. Barrios is drinking himself to death in jo-
vial company away somewhere on his fundacion beyond

Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard