od quietly, her hand resting lightly on her
father's shoulder, her face unmoved, but every line of her features, the
attitude of her whole body expressing the most keen and anxious
attention.

"And so Dain is dead," she said coldly, when her father ceased speaking.

Almayer's elaborately calm demeanour gave way in a moment to an outburst
of violent indignation.

"You stand there as if you were only half alive, and talk to me," he
exclaimed angrily, "as if it was a matter of no importance. Yes, he is
dead! Do you understand? Dead! What do you care? You never cared; you
saw me struggle, and work, and strive, unmoved; and my suffering you
could never see. No, never. You have no heart, and you have no mind, or
you would have understood that it was for you, for your happiness I was
working. I wanted to be rich; I wanted to get away from here. I wanted
to see white men bowing low before the power of your beauty and your
wealth. Old as I am I wished to seek a strange land, a civilisation to
which I am a stranger, so as to find a new life in the contemplation of
your high fortunes, of your triumphs, of your happiness. For that I bore
patiently the burden of work, of disappointment, of humiliation amongst
these savages here, and I had it all nearly in my grasp."

He looked at his daughter's attentive face and jumped to his feet
upsetting the chair.

"Do you hear? I had it all there; so; within reach of my hand."

He paused, trying to keep down his rising anger, and failed.

"Have you no feeling?" he went on. "Have you lived without hope?" Nina's
silence exasperated him; his voice rose, although he tried to master his
feelings.

"Are you content to live in this misery and die in this wretched hole?
Say something, Nina; have you no sympathy? Have you no word of comfort
for me? I that loved you so."

He waited for a while for an answer, and receiving none shook his fist in
his daughter's face.

"I believe you are an idiot!" he yelled.

He looked round for the chair, picked it up and sat down stiffly. His
anger was dead within him, and he felt ashamed of his outburst, yet
relieved to think that now he had laid clear before his daughter the
inner meaning of his life. He thought so in perfect good faith, deceived
by the emotional estimate of his motives, unable to see the crookedness
of his ways, the unreality of his aims, the futility of his regrets. And
now his heart was filled only with a great tende