She hated the sound of that voice ever since.
After that day she left off visiting Almayer's compound, and passed the noon hours under the shade of the brig awning.

She watched for his coming with heart beating quicker and quicker, as he approached, into a wild tumult of newly-aroused feelings of joy and hope and fear that died away with Dain's retreating figure, leaving her tired out, as if after a struggle, sitting still for a long time in dreamy languor.

Then she paddled home slowly in the afternoon, often letting her canoe float with the lazy stream in the quiet backwater of the river.

The paddle hung idle in the water as she sat in the stern, one hand supporting her chin, her eyes wide open, listening intently to the whispering of her heart that seemed to swell at last into a song of extreme sweetness.

Listening to that song she husked the rice at home; it dulled her ears to the shrill bickerings of Bulangi's wives, to the sound of angry reproaches addressed to herself.