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intolerable to a refined mind; it seemed in accord with a great grief:
it had the austerity of a sacrifice offered to a noble ideal. Thus even
the most legitimate touch of materialism was wanting in Mrs. Gould's
character. The dead man of whom she thought with tenderness (because
he was Charley's father) and with some impatience (because he had been
weak), must be put completely in the wrong. Nothing else would do
to keep their prosperity without a stain on its only real, on its
immaterial side!

Charles Gould, on his part, had been obliged to keep the idea of wealth
well to the fore; but he brought it forward as a means, not as an end.
Unless the mine was good business it could not be touched. He had to
insist on that aspect of the enterprise. It was his lever to move
men who had capital. And Charles Gould believed in the mine. He
knew everything that could be known of it. His faith in the mine was
contagious, though it was not served by a great eloquence; but business
men are frequently as sanguine and imaginative as lovers. They are
affected by a personality much oftener than people would suppose; and
Charles Gould, in his unshaken assurance, was absolutely convincing.
Besides, it was a matter of common knowledge to the men to whom he
addressed himself that mining in Costaguana was a game that could be
made considerably more than worth the candle. The men of affairs knew that
very well. The real difficulty in touching it was elsewhere. Against
that there was an implication of calm and implacable resolution in
Charles Gould's very voice. Men of affairs venture sometimes on acts
that the common judgment of the world would pronounce absurd; they make
their decisions on apparently impulsive and human grounds. "Very well,"
had said the considerable personage to whom Charles Gould on his way
out through San Francisco had lucidly exposed his point of view. "Let us
suppose that the mining affairs of Sulaco are taken in hand. There would
then be in it: first, the house of Holroyd, which is all right; then,
Mr. Charles Gould, a citizen of Costaguana, who is also all right; and,
lastly, the Government of the Republic. So far this resembles the first
start of the Atacama nitrate fields, where there was a financing house,
a gentleman of the name of Edwards, and--a Government; or, rather, two
Governments--two South American Governments. And you know what came of
it. War came of it; devastating and prolonged war came of it, Mr. Gould.
However, here we possess the advantage of having only one South
American Government hanging around for plunder out of the deal. It is an
advantage; but then there are degrees of badness, and that Government is
the Costaguana Government."

Thus spoke the considerable personage, the millionaire endower of
churches on a scale befitting the greatness of his native land--the same
to whom the doctors used the language of horrid and veiled menaces. He
was a big-limbed, deliberate man, whose quiet burliness lent to an ample

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