Page 80 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

and generosity, had the fastidious soul of an experienced
woman. She was, before all things and all flatteries, careful
of her pride in the object of her choice. But now he was ac-
tually not looking at her at all; and his expression was tense
and irrational, as is natural in a man who elects to stare at
nothing past a young girl’s head.
‘Well, yes. It was iniquitous. They corrupted him thor-
oughly, the poor old boy. Oh! why wouldn’t he let me go
back to him? But now I shall know how to grapple with
this.’
After pronouncing these words with immense assurance,
he glanced down at her, and at once fell a prey to distress,
incertitude, and fear.
The only thing he wanted to know now, he said, was
whether she did love him enough—whether she would have
the courage to go with him so far away? He put these ques-
tions to her in a voice that trembled with anxiety—for he
was a determined man.
She did. She would. And immediately the future hostess
of all the Europeans in Sulaco had the physical experience
of the earth falling away from under her. It vanished com-
pletely, even to the very sound of the bell. When her feet
touched the ground again, the bell was still ringing in the
valley; she put her hands up to her hair, breathing quickly,
and glanced up and down the stony lane. It was reassuring-
ly empty. Meantime, Charles, stepping with one foot into a
dry and dusty ditch, picked up the open parasol, which had
bounded away from them with a martial sound of drum
taps. He handed it to her soberly, a little crestfallen.