n be
thanked for returning to his native country? I am sure Dona Antonia does
not think so."

"Certainly not, senor," she said, with that perfectly calm openness of
manner which characterized all her utterances. "But when he returns, as
you return, one may be glad--for the sake of both."

Martin Decoud said nothing of his plans. He not only never breathed a
word of them to any one, but only a fortnight later asked the mistress
of the Casa Gould (where he had of course obtained admission at once),
leaning forward in his chair with an air of well-bred familiarity,
whether she could not detect in him that day a marked change--an air, he
explained, of more excellent gravity. At this Mrs. Gould turned her face
full towards him with the silent inquiry of slightly widened eyes and
the merest ghost of a smile, an habitual movement with her, which
was very fascinating to men by something subtly devoted, finely
self-forgetful in its lively readiness of attention. Because, Decoud
continued imperturbably, he felt no longer an idle cumberer of the
earth. She was, he assured her, actually beholding at that moment the
Journalist of Sulaco. At once Mrs. Gould glanced towards Antonia, posed
upright in the corner of a high, straight-backed Spanish sofa, a large
black fan waving slowly against the curves of her fine figure, the tips
of crossed feet peeping from under the hem of the black skirt. Decoud's
eyes also remained fixed there, while in an undertone he added that Miss
Avellanos was quite aware of his new and unexpected vocation, which in
Costaguana was generally the speciality of half-educated negroes and
wholly penniless lawyers. Then, confronting with a sort of urbane
effrontery Mrs. Gould's gaze, now turned sympathetically upon himself,
he breathed out the words, "_Pro Patria!_"

What had happened was that he had all at once yielded to Don Jose's
pressing entreaties to take the direction of a newspaper that would
"voice the aspirations of the province." It had been Don Jose's old
and cherished idea. The necessary plant (on a modest scale) and a large
consignment of paper had been received from America some time before;
the right man alone was wanted. Even Senor Moraga in Sta. Marta had not
been able to find one, and the matter was now becoming pressing;
some organ was absolutely needed to counteract the effect of the lies
disseminated by the Monterist press: the atrocious calumnies, the
appeals to the people calling upon them