"Reflect seriously upon what I am saying to you, regent. If you cannot make your brother listen to reason, if the salaries of the heads are not paid at the earliest possible date, then ... then I shall have to act. And, if my warning is of no avail, then it means your brother's ruin. You yourself know, the dismissal of a regent is such a very exceptional thing that it would bring disgrace upon your family. Help me to save the house of the Adiningrats from such a fate." "I promise," murmured the regent. "Give me your hand, regent." Van Oudijck pressed the thin fingers of the Javanese: "Can I trust you?" he asked. "In life, in death." "Then let us go indoors. And tell me as soon as possible what you have discovered." The regent bowed. A greenish pallor betrayed the silent, secret rage which was working inside him like the fire of a volcano. His eyes, behind Van Oudijck's back, stabbed with a mysterious hatred at the Hollander, the low-born Hollander, the base commoner, the infidel Christian, who had no business to feel anything, with that unclean soul of his, concerning him, his house, his father, his mother, or their supremely sacred aristocracy and nobility ... even though they had always bowed beneath the yoke of those who were stronger than they.... CHAPTER NINE "I have counted on your staying to dinner," said Eva. "Of course," replied Van Helderen, the controller, and his wife. The reception--not a reception, as Eve always said in self-defence--was nearly over: the Van Oudijcks had been the first to go; the regent followed. The Eldersmas were left with their little band of intimates: Dr. Rantzow and Doorn de Bruijn, the senior engineer, with their wives, and the Van Helderens. They sat down in the front verandah with a certain sense of relief and rocked comfortably to and fro. Whiskies-and-soda and glasses of lemonade, with great lumps of ice in them, were handed round. "Always chock full, reception at Eva's," said Mrs. van Helderen. "Fuller than other day at resident's...." Ida van Helderen was the type of the white-skinned half-caste. She always tried to behave in a very European fashion, to talk Dutch nicely; she even pretended to speak bad Malay and not to care for native dishes. She was short and plump all over; she was very white, a dead white, with big, black, astonished eyes. She was full of little mysterious fads and hatreds and affections; all her actions were the result of mysterious little impulses. Sometimes she hated Eva, sometimes she doted on her. She was absolutely unreliable; her every action, her every movement, her every word might be a surprise. She was always in love, tragically. She took all her little affairs very tragically, on a very large and serious scale, with not the least sense of proportion, and then unbosomed herself to Eva, who laughed and comforted her.