Page 66 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

Perhaps he had just dismounted on his return from the
mine; he was English enough to disregard the hottest hours
of the day. Basilio, in a livery of white linen and a red sash,
had squatted for a moment behind his heels to unstrap the
heavy, blunt spurs in the patio; and then the Senor Admin-
istrator would go up the staircase into the gallery. Rows of
plants in pots, ranged on the balustrade between the pilas-
ters of the arches, screened the corredor with their leaves
and flowers from the quadrangle below, whose paved space
is the true hearthstone of a South American house, where
the quiet hours of domestic life are marked by the shifting
of light and shadow on the flagstones.
Senor Avellanos was in the habit of crossing the patio at
five o’clock almost every day. Don Jose chose to come over
at tea-time because the English rite at Dona Emilia’s house
reminded him of the time he lived in London as Minister
Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James. He did not like
tea; and, usually, rocking his American chair, his neat little
shiny boots crossed on the foot-rest, he would talk on and
on with a sort of complacent virtuosity wonderful in a man
of his age, while he held the cup in his hands for a long time.
His close-cropped head was perfectly white; his eyes coal-
black.
On seeing Charles Gould step into the sala he would nod
provisionally and go on to the end of the oratorial period.
Only then he would say—
‘Carlos, my friend, you have ridden from San Tome in
the heat of the day. Always the true English activity. No?
What?’