"I hear," said Mrs. Doorn de Bruijn, placid, melancholy and quietly venomous, "that this time one member of council, one head of a department and three young business-men kept Mrs. van Oudijck amused at Batavia." "And I can assure you people," said the doctor, "that, if Mrs. van Oudijck did not go to Batavia regularly, she would miss a beneficial cure, even though she takes it on her own and not ... by my prescription." "Let us speak no evil!" Eva interrupted, almost entreatingly. "Mrs. van Oudijck is beautiful--with a tranquil Junoesque beauty and the eyes of a Venus--and I can forgive anything to beautiful people about me. And you, doctor," threatening him with her finger, "mustn't betray professional secrets. You doctors, in India, are often far too outspoken about your patients' secrets. When I'm unwell, it's never anything but a headache. Will you make a careful note of that, doctor?" "The resident seems preoccupied," said Doorn de Bruijn. "Could he know ... about his wife?" asked Ida, sombrely, her great eyes filled with black velvet tragedy. "The resident is often like that," said Frans van Helderen. "He has his moods. Sometimes he's pleasant, cheerful, jovial, as he was lately, on circuit. Then again he has his gloomy days, working, working and working and grumbling that nobody does any work except himself." "My poor, unappreciated Onno!" sighed Eva. "I believe he's overworking himself," said Van Helderen. "Labuwangi is a tremendously busy district. And the resident takes things too much to heart, both in his own house and outside, in his relations with his son and his relations with the regent." "I should sack the regent," said the doctor. "But, doctor," said Van Helderen, "you know enough about conditions in Java to know that things can't be done just like that. The regent and his family are closely identified with Labuwangi and too highly considered by the population...." "Yes, I know the Dutch policy. The English in British India deal with their Indian princes in a more arbitrary and high-handed fashion. The Dutch treat them much too gently." "The question might arise which of the two policies is the better in the long run," said Van Helderen, drily, hating to hear a foreigner disparage anything in a Dutch colony. "Fortunately, we know nothing here of the continual poverty and famine that prevail in British India." "I saw the resident speaking very seriously to the regent," said Doorn de Bruijn. "The resident is too susceptible," said Van Helderen. "He allows himself to be greatly dejected by the gradual decline of this old Javanese family, which is doomed to go under, though he'd like to hold it up.... The resident, cool and practical though he may be, is a bit of a romantic in this, though he might refuse to admit it. But he remembers the Adiningrats' glorious past, he remembers that last fine figure, the noble old pangéran, and he compares him with his sons, the one a fanatic, the other a gambler...."