No, he himself did not know whether he believed her or not. His wife had answered so quietly; and now, during the first few days of the engagement, she was so calm, smiling just as usual.... He now for the first time saw that strange side of her, that invulnerability, as though nothing could harm her. Did he suspect, behind this wall of invulnerability, the ironical feminine secrecy of her silently smouldering inner life? It was as though, with his recent nervous suspicion, with his restless mood, in the rankness of superstition that led him to pry and listen to the haunting silence, he had learnt to see around him things to which he had been blind in his burly strength as a ruler and high and mighty chief official. And his longing to make certain of the mysteries at which he was guessing became so violent, in his morbid irritability, that he grew more pleasant and kinder to his son, though this time it arose not from the spontaneous paternal affection which, when all was said, he had always felt for Theo, but from curiosity, to hear all that he had to say, to make Theo speak out. And Theo, who hated Léonie, who hated his father, who hated Addie, who hated Doddie, in his general hatred of all those about him, who hated life with the stubborn ideas of a fair-haired Eurasian, longing for money and beautiful women, angry because the world, life, riches, happiness--as he pictured it to himself in his petty fashion--did not come rushing to him, falling into his arms, falling on his neck: Theo was willing enough to squeeze out his words drop by drop, like gall and wormwood, silently revelling in the sight of his father's suffering. And he allowed Van Oudijck to divine, very gradually, that it was true, after all, about mamma and Addie. In the intimacy that sprang up between the father and son out of suspicion and hatred, Theo spoke of his brother in the compound, said that he knew papa sent him money and therefore acknowledged that the thing was true. And Van Oudijck, no longer certain, no longer knowing the truth, admitted that it might be so, admitted that it was so. Then, remembering the anonymous letters--which had only lately ceased, since he had been sending money to that half-caste who ventured to assume his name--he also remembered the libels which he had often read in them and which, at the time, he had always cast from him as so much filth; he remembered the two names, those of his wife and of Theo himself, which had so constantly been coupled in them. His distrust and suspicion blazed up like flames, like a now inextinguishable fire, which scorched every other thought or feeling ... until at last he was no longer able to restrain himself and spoke roundly to Theo on the subject. He did not trust Theo's indignation and denial. And he now trusted nothing and nobody, he distrusted his wife and his children and his officials; he distrusted his cook.... CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO