were deprived of music “since that bankruptcy.” She understood perfectly that her Max bought the liberty of a slave family at Menado, when they seemed bitterly wretched at having to mount the table of the auctioneer. She thought it natural that Max gave other horses to the Alfoors in the Minahassa, when theirs had been ridden to death by the officers of the Bayonnaise. She did not object at Menado and Amboina when he called before him and looked after the castaways of the American whalers, and felt himself too much grand seigneur to present an hotel bill to the American Government. She thought it quite right that the officers of every man-of-war that arrived mostly stayed with Max, and that his house was their favourite pied-à-terre.
Was he not her Max? Would it not have been too petty, too childish, too absurd to bind him, who thought on so princely a scale, to the rules of economy and carefulness which are valid for others? And besides, even though for the moment there might seem to be a disproportion between their income and their expenditure, was not Max, her Max, destined for a brilliant career? Would he not soon be in circumstances which would enable him, without exceeding his income, to give a free rein to his magnanimous inclinations? Would not her Max be some day Governor-General of her beloved India, or even . . . a King? Was it not, indeed, strange that he had not yet been made a King?
If in these things there was in her a kind of naïveté, the cause of it was her infatuation for Havelaar; and, if ever, the saying that much must be forgiven to those who have loved much was applicable in her case!
But she had nothing to be forgiven. Without quite sharing the exaggerated notions she fostered with regard to her Max, one may still assume that he had before him a promising future; and if this well-founded prospect had been realized, the unpleasant consequences of his liberality might indeed soon have been removed. But also another reason, of an entirely different nature, excused her and his seeming carelessness.
