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

sceptical, bitter speech, had no other means of showing hisprofound respect for the character of the woman who wasknown in the country as the English Senora. He presentedthis tribute very seriously indeed; it was no trifle for a manof his habits. Mrs. Gould felt that, too, perfectly. She wouldnever have thought of imposing upon him this markedshow of deference.She kept her old Spanish house (one of the finest specimensin Sulaco) open for the dispensation of the smallgraces of existence. She dispensed them with simplicity andcharm because she was guided by an alert perception of values.She was highly gifted in the art of human intercoursewhich consists in delicate shades of self-forgetfulness and inthe suggestion of universal comprehension. Charles Gould(the Gould family, established in Costaguana for three generations,always went to England for their education and fortheir wives) imagined that he had fallen in love with a girl’ssound common sense like any other man, but these werenot exactly the reasons why, for instance, the whole surveyingcamp, from the youngest of the young men to theirmature chief, should have found occasion to allude to Mrs.Gould’s house so frequently amongst the high peaks of theSierra. She would have protested that she had done nothingfor them, with a low laugh and a surprised widening of hergrey eyes, had anybody told her how convincingly she wasremembered on the edge of the snow-line above Sulaco. Butdirectly, with a little capable air of setting her wits to work,she would have found an explanation. ‘Of course, it wassuch a surprise for these boys to find any sort of welcome