nd of my sister, and it's
damnable to have to go back to India knowing she must be all adrift,
without protection, going through God knows what! Mrs. Fullarton
says she's looking awfully pale and down.

MALISE. [Struggling between resentment and sympathy] Why do you
come to me?

HUNTINGDON. We thought----

MALISE. Who?

HUNTINGDON. My--my father and myself.

MALISE. Go on.

HUNTINGDON. We thought there was just a chance that, having lost
that job, she might come to you again for advice. If she does, it
would be really generous of you if you'd put my father in touch with
her. He's getting old, and he feels this very much. [He hands
MALISE a card] This is his address.

MALISE. [Twisting the card] Let there be no mistake, sir; I do
nothing that will help give her back to her husband. She's out to
save her soul alive, and I don't join the hue and cry that's after
her. On the contrary--if I had the power. If your father wants to
shelter her, that's another matter. But she'd her own ideas about
that.

HUNTINGDON. Perhaps you don't realize how unfit my sister is for
rough and tumble. She's not one of this new sort of woman. She's
always been looked after, and had things done for her. Pluck she's
got, but that's all, and she's bound to come to grief.

MALISE. Very likely--the first birds do. But if she drops half-way
it's better than if she'd never flown. Your sister, sir, is trying
the wings of her spirit, out of the old slave market. For women as
for men, there's more than one kind of dishonour, Captain Huntingdon,
and worse things than being dead, as you may know in your profession.

HUNTINGDON. Admitted--but----

MALISE. We each have our own views as to what they are. But they
all come to--death of our spirits, for the sake of our carcases.
Anything more?

HUNTINGDON. My leave's up. I sail to-morrow. If you do see my
sister I trust you to give her my love and say I begged she would see
my father.

MALISE. If I have the chance--yes.

He makes a gesture of salute, to which HUNTINGDON responds.
Then the latter turns and goes out.

MALISE. Poor fugitive! Where are you running now?

He stands at the window, through which the evening sunlight is
powdering the room with smoky gold. The stolid Boy has again
come in. MALISE stares at him, then goes back to the table,
takes up the MS., and booms it at him; he receives the charge,
breathing