Would he fail? To fail in striving for an aim which he had set himself as an official: he would never forgive himself! Hitherto he had always succeeded in achieving what he had willed. But what he now wanted to achieve was, unknown to himself, not merely an official aim, a part of his work. What he now wanted to achieve was an aim the idea of which sprang from his humanity, from the noblest part of himself. What he now wanted to achieve was an ideal, the ideal of the European in the east and of the European who sees the east as he wishes to see it and as he could but see it. And that there were forces that gathered into one force, which threatened him, mocking at his proposals, laughing at his ideals, and which was all the stronger through lying more deeply hidden: this he would never admit. It was not in him to acknowledge them; and even the clearest revelation of them would be a riddle to his soul and would remain a myth. CHAPTER NINETEEN Van Oudijck had been to the government-building that day. Léonie met him the moment he returned. "The raden-aju pangéran is here," she said. "She has been here quite an hour, Otto. She wishes to speak to you badly. She has been waiting for you." "Léonie," he said, "I want you to look through these letters. I often get libels of this sort and I've never mentioned them to you. But perhaps it's better that you should not be left in ignorance. Perhaps it's better for you to know. But please don't take them to heart. I needn't assure you that I don't for a moment believe one word of all this filth. So don't get upset about it and give me back the letters presently yourself. Don't leave them lying about.... And send the raden-aju pangéran to my office...." Léonie, carrying the letters in her hand, went to the back-verandah and returned with the princess, a distinguished-looking, grey-haired woman, with a proud, royal bearing in her still slender figure. Her eyes were a sombre black; her mouth, which was widened in outline by betel-nut-juice and which grinned with filed, black, lacquered teeth, was like a grimacing mask and spoilt the proud nobility of her expression. She wore a black satin kabaai fastened with jewelled buttons. It was above all her grey hair and her sombre eyes that gave her a peculiar admixture of venerable dignity and smouldering passion. Tragedy hung over her old age. She herself felt that fate was pressing tragically upon her and hers; and she placed her only hope in the far-reaching, divinely-appointed power of her first-born, Sunario, the Regent of Labuwangi.