He paused, then muttered almost inaudibly, "That can lead one very far,
though."
Behind their backs the political tide that once in every twenty-four
hours set with a strong flood through the Gould drawing-room could
be heard, rising higher in a hum of voices. Men had been dropping in
singly, or in twos and threes: the higher officials of the province,
engineers of the railway, sunburnt and in tweeds, with the frosted head
of their chief smiling with slow, humorous indulgence amongst the young
eager faces. Scarfe, the lover of fandangos, had already slipped out in
search of some dance, no matter where, on the outskirts of the town. Don
Juste Lopez, after taking his daughters home, had entered solemnly, in a
black creased coat buttoned up under his spreading brown beard. The
few members of the Provincial Assembly present clustered at once around
their President to discuss the news of the war and the last proclamation
of the rebel Montero, the miserable Montero, calling in the name of "a
justly incensed democracy" upon all the Provincial Assemblies of the
Republic to suspend their sittings till his sword had made peace and the
will of the people could be consulted. It was practically an invitation
to dissolve: an unheard-of audacity of that evil madman.
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