The great sala had been emptying itself slowly. When the Gefe Politico rose to go, most of those still remaining stood up suddenly in sign of respect, and Don Jose Avellanos stopped the rocking of his chair. But the good-natured First Official made a deprecatory gesture, waved his hand to Charles Gould, and went out discreetly. In the comparative peace of the room the screaming “Monsieur l’Administrateur” of the frail, hairy Frenchman seemed to acquire a preternatural shrillness. The explorer of the Capitalist syndicate was still enthusiastic. “Ten million dollars’ worth of copper practically in sight, Monsieur l’Administrateur. Ten millions in sight! And a railway coming--a railway! They will never believe my report. C’est trop beau.” He fell a prey to a screaming ecstasy, in the midst of sagely nodding heads, before Charles Gould’s imperturbable calm. And only the priest continued his pacing, flinging round the skirt of his soutane at each end of his beat. Decoud murmured to him ironically: “Those gentlemen talk about their gods.” Father Corbelan stopped short, looked at the journalist of Sulaco fixedly for a moment, shrugged his shoulders slightly, and resumed his plodding walk of an obstinate traveller. And now the Europeans were dropping off from the group around Charles Gould till the Administrador of the Great Silver Mine could be seen in his whole lank length, from head to foot, left stranded by the ebbing tide of his guests on the great square of carpet, as it were a multi-coloured shoal of flowers and arabesques under his brown boots. Father Corbelan approached the rocking-chair of Don Jose Avellanos. “Come, brother,” he said, with kindly brusqueness and a touch of relieved impatience a man may feel at the end of a perfectly useless ceremony. “A la Casa! A la Casa! This has been all talk. Let us now go and think and pray for guidance from Heaven.”