CHAPTER THIRTEEN
On the day Mrs. Gould was going, in Dr. Monygham's words, to "give a
tertulia," Captain Fidanza went down the side of his schooner lying in
Sulaco harbour, calm, unbending, deliberate in the way he sat down
in his dinghy and took up his sculls. He was later than usual. The
afternoon was well advanced before he landed on the beach of the Great
Isabel, and with a steady pace climbed the slope of the island.
From a distance he made out Giselle sitting in a chair tilted back
against the end of the house, under the window of the girl's room. She
had her embroidery in her hands, and held it well up to her eyes. The
tranquillity of that girlish figure exasperated the feeling of perpetual
struggle and strife he carried in his breast. He became angry. It seemed
to him that she ought to hear the clanking of his fetters--his silver
fetters, from afar. And while ashore that day, he had met the doctor
with the evil eye, who had looked at him very hard.
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