Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART FIRST: THE SILVER OF THE MINE 6. CHAPTER SIX (continued)

"Ah, yes! The religion of silver and iron. He's a very civil man,
though he looked awfully solemn when he first saw the Madonna on
the staircase, who's only wood and paint; but he said nothing to
me. My dear Charley, I heard those men talk among themselves.
Can it be that they really wish to become, for an immense
consideration, drawers of water and hewers of wood to all the
countries and nations of the earth?"

"A man must work to some end," Charles Gould said, vaguely.

Mrs. Gould, frowning, surveyed him from head to foot. With his
riding breeches, leather leggings (an article of apparel never
before seen in Costaguana), a Norfolk coat of grey flannel, and
those great flaming moustaches, he suggested an officer of
cavalry turned gentleman farmer. This combination was gratifying
to Mrs. Gould's tastes. "How thin the poor boy is!" she thought.
"He overworks himself." But there was no denying that his
fine-drawn, keen red face, and his whole, long-limbed, lank
person had an air of breeding and distinction. And Mrs. Gould
relented.

"I only wondered what you felt," she murmured, gently.

During the last few days, as it happened, Charles Gould had been
kept too busy thinking twice before he spoke to have paid much
attention to the state of his feelings. But theirs was a
successful match, and he had no difficulty in finding his answer.

"The best of my feelings are in your keeping, my dear," he said,
lightly; and there was so much truth in that obscure phrase that
he experienced towards her at the moment a great increase of
gratitude and tenderness.

Mrs. Gould, however, did not seem to find this answer in the
least obscure. She brightened up delicately; already he had
changed his tone.