Antonia had lifted her veil when Charles Gould allegorically withdrew the material interests from the field of idealism, leaving the moral government of the Occidental Republic open. Her roadside junta concluded, she lowers it again. Significantly, the sole glimpse we get of her inner state is her "longing" to know about "Decoud's escape," a loaded phrase that might mean his "escape" from the "precipitous path" of idealism.