Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART SECOND: THE ISABELS 6. CHAPTER SIX (continued)

But, even as he said this, he had obviously given up his search,
and walked straight towards Mrs. Gould, who looked at him with
doubtful surprise.

"Senora," he began, in a low voice.

"What is it, Don Martin?" asked Mrs. Gould. And then she added,
with a slight laugh, "I am so nervous to-day," as if to explain
the eagerness of the question.

"Nothing immediately dangerous," said Decoud, who now could not
conceal his agitation. "Pray don't distress yourself. No, really,
you must not distress yourself."

Mrs. Gould, with her candid eyes very wide open, her lips
composed into a smile, was steadying herself with a little
bejewelled hand against the side of the door.

"Perhaps you don't know how alarming you are, appearing like this
unexpectedly--"

"I! Alarming!" he protested, sincerely vexed and surprised. "I
assure you that I am not in the least alarmed myself. A fan is
lost; well, it will be found again. But I don't think it is here.
It is a fan I am looking for. I cannot understand how Antonia
could--Well! Have you found it, amigo?"

"No, senor," said behind Mrs. Gould the soft voice of Basilio,
the head servant of the Casa. "I don't think the senorita could
have left it in this house at all."

"Go and look for it in the patio again. Go now, my friend; look
for it on the steps, under the gate; examine every flagstone;
search for it till I come down again. . . . That fellow"--he
addressed himself in English to Mrs. Gould--"is always stealing
up behind one's back on his bare feet. I set him to look for that
fan directly I came in to justify my reappearance, my sudden
return."

He paused and Mrs. Gould said, amiably, "You are always welcome."
She paused for a second, too. "But I am waiting to learn the
cause of your return."

Decoud affected suddenly the utmost nonchalance.