Page 96 - nostromo-a-tale-of-the-seaboard

on facts; and Charles Gould, whose imagination had been
permanently affected by the one great fact of a silver mine,
had no objection to this theory of the world’s future. If it
had seemed distasteful for a moment it was because the
sudden statement of such vast eventualities dwarfed almost
to nothingness the actual matter in hand. He and his plans
and all the mineral wealth of the Occidental Province ap-
peared suddenly robbed of every vestige of magnitude. The
sensation was disagreeable; but Charles Gould was not dull.
Already he felt that he was producing a favourable impres-
sion; the consciousness of that flattering fact helped him to
a vague smile, which his big interlocutor took for a smile of
discreet and admiring assent. He smiled quietly, too; and
immediately Charles Gould, with that mental agility man-
kind will display in defence of a cherished hope, reflected
that the very apparent insignificance of his aim would help
him to success. His personality and his mine would be tak-
en up because it was a matter of no great consequence, one
way or another, to a man who referred his action to such a
prodigious destiny. And Charles Gould was not humiliat-
ed by this consideration, because the thing remained as big
as ever for him. Nobody else’s vast conceptions of destiny
could diminish the aspect of his desire for the redemption
of the San Tome mine. In comparison to the correctness of
his aim, definite in space and absolutely attainable within
a limited time, the other man appeared for an instant as a
dreamy idealist of no importance.
The great man, massive and benignant, had been look-
ing at him thoughtfully; when he broke the short silence it