desirable. On the other hand, she had not known anything of absolute
want. Even the very poverty of her aunt, the Marchesa, had nothing
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