peared to get out of a well-closed cupboard in her room, for the clicking of several locks was heard.
“What are you giving him?” asked Havelaar.
“Oh, make your mind easy. Max: it’s a biscuit out of a tin from Batavia! And the sugar also has always been under lock and key.”
Havelaar’s thoughts returned to the point where they had been interrupted.
“Do you know,” he continued, “that we haven’t yet paid the Doctor’s bill? . . . Oh, it is very hard!”
“My dear Max, we are living so economically here, we shall soon be able to pay everything! Besides, you’ll no doubt soon be made a Resident, and then everything will be settled in a very short time.”
“That’s exactly the thing that makes me sad,” said Havelaar. “I should be so very sorry to leave Lebak . . . I’ll explain. Don’t you think we loved our Max even more after his illness? Well, it’s just in the same way that I shall love this poor place Lebak when the cancer has been cured from which it has suffered so many years. The thought of promotion dismays me, for I can’t be spared here, Tine! And yet, on the other hand, when I think of our debts . . .”
“It will all come right, Max! Even if now you had to go away from here, you could help Lebak later, when you are Governor-General.”
At this there showed savage streaks in Havelaar’s embroidery-pattern! There was anger in that florescence, those lace-holes became angular, pointed, they bit each other . . .
Tine saw that she had said something amiss.
“Darling Max . . .” she began gently.
“Curse it! Do you want to let those poor wretches hunger so long? Can you live on sand?”
“Darling Max!”
But he jumped up. There was no more drawing that evening.
