such that he could transfer it to an unworthy son. It was settled: the regent would be dismissed. The princess had listened to him, unable to credit his words, seeing the abyss yawn before her. And, with a yell like that of a wounded lioness, with a scream of pain, she pulled the jewelled hairpins from her head, till her long grey hair fell streaming about her face; with a rending tug she tore open her satin kabaai; beside herself with anguish, she threw herself before the feet of the European, took firm hold of his foot with her two hands, planted it, with a movement which made Van Oudijck stagger, on her bowed neck and cried aloud and screamed that she, the daughter of the sultans of Madura, would for ever be his slave, that she swore to be nothing but his slave, if only he would have mercy on her son this time and not plunge her house into the abyss of shame which she saw yawning around her. And she clutched the European's foot, as though with the strength of despair, and held that foot, like a yoke of servitude, with the sole and heel of the shoe pressed upon her flowing grey hair, upon her neck bowed to the floor. Van Oudijck trembled with emotion. He realized that this high-spirited woman would never humble herself like that, with evident spontaneity, to the lowest depths of humiliation that she could conceive, would not resort to the most vehement utterance of actual grief that a woman could ever display, with her hair unbound and the ruler's foot planted on her neck, if she had not been shaken to the very depths of her soul, if she did not feel desperate to the pitch of self-destruction. And he hesitated for a moment. But only for a moment. He was a man of considered principles, of fixed, a priori logic, immovable when he had come to a decision, wholly inaccessible to impulse. With the utmost respect, he at last released his foot from the princess' clinging grasp. Holding out both hands to her, with visible compassion, visible emotion, he raised her from the floor. He made her sit down; and she fell into a chair, broken, sobbing aloud. For a moment, perceiving his gentleness, she thought that she had won. But when he calmly but decidedly shook his head in denial, she understood that it was over. She panted for breath, half-swooning, her kabaai still open, her hair still unbound. At that moment Léonie entered the room. She had seen the drama enacted before her eyes and felt a thrill of artistic emotion. She experienced something like compassion in her barren soul. She approached the princess, who flung herself into her arms, woman seeking woman in the unreasoning despair of that inevitable doom. And Léonie, turning her beautiful eyes on Van Oudijck, murmured a single word of intercession and whispered: "Give in! Give in!"