Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
last instalment of the foreign loan. That stony fiend of a man said all these things (which were accessible to his Excellency's intelligence) in a cold-blooded manner which made one shudder.
A long course of reading historical works, light and gossipy in tone, carried out in garrets of Parisian hotels, sprawling on an untidy bed, to the neglect of his duties, menial or otherwise, had affected the manners of Pedro Montero. Had he seen around him the splendor of the old Intendencia — the magnificent hangings, the gilt furniture ranged along the walls — had he stood upon a dais on a noble square of red carpet, he would have probably been very dangerous from a sense of success and elevation. But in this sacked and devastated residence, with the three pieces of common furniture huddled up in the middle of the vast apartment, Pedrito's imagination was subdued by a feeling of insecurity and impermanence. That feeling, and the firm attitude of Charles Gould, who had not once so far pronounced the word "Excellency," diminished him in his own eyes. He assumed the tone of an enlightened man of the world, and begged Charles Gould to dismiss from his mind every cause for alarm. He was now conversing, he reminded him, with the brother of the master of the country, charged with a reorganizing mission. The trusted brother of the master of the country, he repeated. Nothing was farther from the thoughts of that wise and patriotic hero than ideas of destruction. "I entreat you, Don Carlos, not to give way to your anti-democratic prejudices," he cried, in a burst of condescending effusion.
449
