words of hope on his lips. He
could not take her back into that savage life to which he was condemned
himself. He was also a little afraid of her. What would she think of
him? He reckoned the years. A grown woman. A civilised woman, young
and hopeful; while he felt old and hopeless, and very much like those
savages round him. He asked himself what was going to be her future. He
could not answer that question yet, and he dared not face her. And yet
he longed after her. He hesitated for years.

His hesitation was put an end to by Nina's unexpected appearance in
Sambir. She arrived in the steamer under the captain's care. Almayer
beheld her with surprise not unmixed with wonder. During those ten years
the child had changed into a woman, black-haired, olive-skinned, tall,
and beautiful, with great sad eyes, where the startled expression common
to Malay womankind was modified by a thoughtful tinge inherited from her
European ancestry. Almayer thought with dismay of the meeting of his
wife and daughter, of what this grave girl in European clothes would
think of her betel-nut chewing mother, squatting in a dark hut,
disorderly, half naked, and sulky. He also feared an outbreak of temper
on the part of that pest of a woman he had hitherto managed to keep
tolerably quiet, thereby saving the remnants of his dilapidated
furniture. And he stood there before the closed door of the hut in the
blazing sunshine listening to the murmur of voices, wondering what went
on inside, wherefrom all the servant-maids had been expelled at the
beginning of the interview, and now stood clustered by the palings with
half-covered faces in a chatter of curious speculation. He forgot
himself there trying to catch a stray word through the bamboo walls, till
the captain of the steamer, who had walked up with the girl, fearing a
sunstroke, took him under the arm and led him into the shade of his own
verandah: where Nina's trunk stood already, having been landed by the
steamer's men. As soon as Captain Ford had his glass before him and his
cheroot lighted, Almayer asked for the explanation of his daughter's
unexpected arrival. Ford said little beyond generalising in vague but
violent terms upon the foolishness of women in general, and of Mrs. Vinck
in particular.

"You know, Kaspar," said he, in conclusion, to the excited Almayer, "it
is deucedly awkward to have a half-caste girl in the house. There's such
a lot of fools about. There