it come down, so that it may go north and return to us in
the shape of credit."

Mrs. Gould glanced along the corredor towards the door of her husband's
room. Decoud, watching her as if she had his fate in her hands, detected
an almost imperceptible nod of assent. He bowed with a smile, and,
putting his hand into the breast pocket of his coat, pulled out a fan of
light feathers set upon painted leaves of sandal-wood. "I had it in my
pocket," he murmured, triumphantly, "for a plausible pretext." He bowed
again. "Good-night, senora."

Mrs. Gould continued along the corredor away from her husband's room.
The fate of the San Tome mine was lying heavy upon her heart. It was a
long time now since she had begun to fear it. It had been an idea. She
had watched it with misgivings turning into a fetish, and now the
fetish had grown into a monstrous and crushing weight. It was as if the
inspiration of their early years had left her heart to turn into a wall
of silver-bricks, erected by the silent work of evil spirits, between
her and her husband. He seemed to dwell alone within a circumvallation
of precious metal, leaving her outside with her school, her hospital,
the sick mothers and the feeble old men, mere insignificant vestiges of
the initial inspiration. "Those poor people!" she murmured to herself.

Below she heard the voice of Martin Decoud in the patio speaking loudly:

"I have found Dona Antonia's fan, Basilio. Look, here it is!"

CHAPTER SEVEN

It was part of what Decoud would have called his sane materialism that
he did not believe in the possibility of friendship between man and
woman.

The one exception he allowed confirmed, he maintained, that absolute
rule. Friendship was possible between brother and sister, meaning
by friendship the frank unreserve, as before another human being, of
thoughts and sensations; all the objectless and necessary sincerity of
one's innermost life trying to re-act upon the profound sympathies of
another existence.

His favourite sister, the handsome, slightly arbitrary and resolute
angel, ruling the father and mother Decoud in the first-floor apartments
of a very fine Parisian house, was the recipient of Martin Decoud's
confidences as to his thoughts, actions, purposes, doubts, and even
failures. . . .

"Prepare our little circle in Paris for the birth of another South
American Republic. One more or less, what does it matter? They may come
into the world like evil flowers o