Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/300

 suddenly spoke to her about what came up in his thoughts about the subjects that occupied him, and how quickly she, without understanding of what he treated, knew how to seize the sense of his meaning, which he did not generally explain, as if it was a matter of course, that she knew what he meant. Often when he was discontented with his own labour, or bad news just received, he would jump up and say something unkind to her, who was not to blame for his discontent. But she liked to hear this, because it was another proof how Max confounded her with himself. And, therefore, there was never a question of repentance of such apparent unkindness, or of pardon on the other side. This would have appeared to them as if somebody had asked his own pardon, because he in ill humour had beaten his own forehead.

She knew him so well, that she could tell exactly when she had to be there to procure him a moment’s relaxation—exactly when he needed her advice, and not less exactly she knew when she had to leave him alone.

In this room Havelaar was seated on a certain morning, when the Controller entered with a letter in his hand just received.

“This is a difficult matter,” he said, entering; “very difficult.”

When I state that this letter imposed on him the duty of stating to Havelaar why there was a change in the prices of joiners’ work and labourers’ wages, the reader