There must be an end now of this silent reserve, of that air of impenetrability behind which he had been safeguarding his dignity. It was the least ignoble form of dissembling forced upon him by that parody of civilized institutions which offended his intelligence, his uprightness, and his sense of right.
He was like his father. He had no ironic eye. He was not amused at the absurdities that prevail in this world. They hurt him in his innate gravity.
He felt that the miserable death of that poor Decoud took from him his inaccessible position of a force in the background. It committed him openly unless he wished to throw up the game -- and that was impossible. The material interests required from him the sacrifice of his aloofness -- perhaps his own safety too. And he reflected that Decoud's separationist plan had not gone to the bottom with the lost silver.
The only thing that was not changed was his position towards Mr Holroyd.
The head of silver and steel interests had entered into Costaguana affairs with a sort of passion. Costaguana had become necessary to his existence;in the San Tome mine he had found the imaginative satisfaction which other minds would get from drama, from art, or from a risky and fascinating sport.
It was a special form of the great man's extravagance, sanctioned by a moral intention, big enough to flatter his vanity. Even in this aberration of his genius he served the progress of the world. Charles Gould felt sure of being understood with precision and judged with the indulgence of their common passion. Nothing now could surprise or startle this great man. And Charles Gould imagined himself writing a letter to San Francisco in some such words: `. . . The men at the head of the movement are dead or have fled; the civil organization of the province is at an end for the present;the Blanco party in Sulaco has collapsed inexcusably, but in the characteristic manner of this country. But Barrios, untouched in Cayta, remains still available. I am forced to take up openly the plan of a provincial revolution as the only way of placing the enormous material interests involved in the prosperity and peace of Sulaco in a position of permanent safety .
. . .' That was clear. He saw these words as if written in letters of fire upon the wall at which he was gazing abstractedly.
Mrs Gould watched his abstraction with dread. It was a domestic and frightful phenomenon that darkened and chilled the house for her like a thunder-cloud passing over the sun. Charles Gould's fits of abstraction depicted the energetic concentration of a will haunted by a fixed idea.
A man haunted by a fixed idea is insane. He is dangerous even if that idea is an idea of justice; for may he not bring the heaven down pitilessly upon a loved head? The eyes of Mrs Gould, watching her husband's profile, filled with tears again. And again she seemed to see the despair of the unfortunate Antonia.
`What would I have done if Charley had been drowned while we were engaged?'
she exclaimed, mentally, with horror. Her heart turned to ice, while her cheeks flamed up as if scorched by the blaze of a funeral pyre consuming all her earthly affections. The tears burst out of her eyes.
`Antonia will kill herself!' she cried out.
This cry fell into the silence of the room with strangely little effect.
Only the doctor, crumbling up a piece of bread, with his head inclined on one side, raised his face, and the few long hairs sticking out of his shaggy eyebrows stirred in a slight frown. Dr Monygham thought quite sincerely that Decoud was a singularly unworthy object for any woman's affection.
Then he lowered his head again, with a curl of his lip, and his heart full of tender admiration for Mrs Gould.
`She thinks of that girl,' he said to himself; `she thinks of the Viola children; she thinks of me; of the wounded; of the miners; she always thinks of everybody who is poor and miserable! But what will she do if Charles gets the worst of it in this infernal scrimmage those confounded Avellanos have drawn him into? No one seems to be thinking of her.'
Charles Gould, staring at the wall, pursued his reflections subtly.
`I shall write to Holroyd that the San Tome mine is big enough to take in hand the making of a new State. It'll please him. It'll reconcile him to the risk.'
But was Barrios really available? Perhaps. But he was inaccessible.
