Читать книгу The Temptress (La tierra de todos) онлайн

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As they lunched Don Carlos inquired of his daughter if she had been near the camp at the dam. How was the work getting on?

The hope, which daily grew brighter, of becoming rich again, had, of late, changed Rojas from the gloomy and discouraged man he had been for so many years, into one capable now of smiling once more. If the engineers of the Argentine government succeeded in damming the Rio Negro, the canals even then under construction, according to the plans of a fellow named Robledo and his partner, would irrigate the lands that these two engineers had bought; and since those lands adjoined his own, he, too, would benefit from the irrigation system, and the value of his property would go up by leaps and bounds.

Celinda listened to her father’s comments on the engineering work and its possible consequences for themselves with the indifference youth generally exhibits toward money matters. But the discourse of Don Rojas on riches and what could be done with them was cut short by the arrival of a mulatto of overflowing proportions, fat cheeked, with slanting eyes, her coarse black hair gathered into a thick braid that undulated along the elevations and declivities of her back and then hung free, endeavoring apparently to reach the ground.