Page 82 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

with that girl, and his mind of the San Tome Concession.
He added that he would have to leave her for a few days to
find an American, a man from San Francisco, who was still
somewhere in Europe. A few months before he had made
his acquaintance in an old historic German town, situat-
ed in a mining district. The American had his womankind
with him, but seemed lonely while they were sketching all
day long the old doorways and the turreted corners of the
mediaeval houses. Charles Gould had with him the in-
separable companionship of the mine. The other man was
interested in mining enterprises, knew something of Costa-
guana, and was no stranger to the name of Gould. They had
talked together with some intimacy which was made pos-
sible by the difference of their ages. Charles wanted now to
find that capitalist of shrewd mind and accessible character.
His father’s fortune in Costaguana, which he had supposed
to be still considerable, seemed to have melted in the ras-
cally crucible of revolutions. Apart from some ten thousand
pounds deposited in England, there appeared to be nothing
left except the house in Sulaco, a vague right of forest ex-
ploitation in a remote and savage district, and the San Tome
Concession, which had attended his poor father to the very
brink of the grave.
He explained those things. It was late when they parted.
She had never before given him such a fascinating vision
of herself. All the eagerness of youth for a strange life, for
great distances, for a future in which there was an air of
adventure, of combat—a subtle thought of redress and con-
quest, had filled her with an intense excitement, which she

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