How he had managed to be on the most excellent terms with the Regent who exacted taxes in kind, and at the same time also had the most cordial relations with the representatives of the opium farmers, who found it necessary to throw dust into the eyes of the Dutch authorities; and how she had lent out money to the natives on the most exorbitant interest for which she did not scruple to take, as securities, valuable articles such as jewels and heirlooms, all these dirty transactions had remained a profound secret and had not prevented van Gulpendam from rising to the position of full Resident.
This long isolation had, moreover, the most pernicious effect upon his grasping character, and upon the no less ambitious disposition of his young wife. By continual contact with none but inferiors who bowed down to them to the very ground, the bearing of Laurentia had grown to be intolerably arrogant. She had become imperious woman personified, and this grave blemish in her character was so entirely in harmony with her outward appearance, that when she had to appear in public on official occasions in the full dignity of “Resident’s wife” she might have served as model for a Juno.
Such then was the mother of Anna van Gulpendam, as she suddenly stalked into the pandoppo and at the sight of Dalima straightway fired up and cried out: “So! has that slut come in again?”
“Now then,” she continued in her wrath, “tell me, you young monkey, where have you been? You have been out, I’ll be bound, dragging about with that lover of yours!”
“Pardon, madam!” cried the young girl. “I did not run away. I did not indeed!”
“And you did not leave master Leo running about by himself in the garden?”
“I was carried off, madam,” said the young girl.
“Carried off!” cried Mrs. van Gulpendam scornfully, “by whom, pray?”
“By two strange Chinamen,” replied Dalima.