Nostromo - A Tale of the Seaboard.pdf - Planet eBook

could have disclosed; but the Ricos, as the populace calledthem, had contributed under the pressure of their Nestor’seloquence. Some of the more enthusiastic ladies had beenmoved to bring offerings of jewels into the hands of the manwho was the life and soul of the party.There were moments when both his life and his soulseemed overtaxed by so many years of undiscouraged beliefin regeneration. He appeared almost inanimate, sittingrigidly by the side of Mrs. Gould in the landau, with his fine,old, clean-shaven face of a uniform tint as if modelled inyellow wax, shaded by a soft felt hat, the dark eyes lookingout fixedly. Antonia, the beautiful Antonia, as Miss Avellanoswas called in Sulaco, leaned back, facing them; and herfull figure, the grave oval of her face with full red lips, madeher look more mature than Mrs. Gould, with her mobileexpression and small, erect person under a slightly swayingsunshade.Whenever possible Antonia attended her father; her recognizeddevotion weakened the shocking effect of her scornfor the rigid conventions regulating the life of Spanish-American girlhood. And, in truth, she was no longer girlish.It was said that she often wrote State papers from her father’sdictation, and was allowed to read all the books in hislibrary. At the receptions— where the situation was savedby the presence of a very decrepit old lady (a relation of theCorbelans), quite deaf and motionless in an armchair—Antoniacould hold her own in a discussion with two or threemen at a time. Obviously she was not the girl to be contentwith peeping through a barred window at a cloaked figure