pair of them out?" he growled.

The steward, pouring out the coffee into the mate's cup, muttered
moodily but distinctly: "The lady wasn't when I was laying the table."

Powell's ears were fine enough to detect something hostile in this
reference to the captain's wife. For of what other person could they be
speaking? The steward added with a gloomy sort of fairness: "But she
will be before I bring the dishes in. She never gives that sort of
trouble. That she doesn't."

"No. Not in that way," Mr Franklin agreed, and then both he and the
steward, after glancing at Powell--the stranger to the ship--said
nothing more.

But this had been enough to rouse his curiosity. Curiosity is natural
to man. Of course it was not a malevolent curiosity which, if not
exactly natural, is to be met fairly frequently in men and perhaps more
frequently in women--especially if a woman be in question; and that
woman under a cloud, in a manner of speaking. For under a cloud Flora
de Barral was fated to be even at sea. Yes. Even that sort of darkness
which attends a woman for whom there is no clear place in the world hung
over her. Yes. Even at sea!

"And this is the pathos of being a woman. A man can struggle to get a
place for himself or perish. But a woman's part is passive, say what
you like, and shuffle the facts of the world as you may, hinting at lack
of energy, of wisdom, of courage. As a matter of fact, almost all women
have all that--of their own kind. But they are not made for attack.
Wait they must. I am speaking here of women who are really women. And
it's no use talking of opportunities, either. I know that some of them
do talk of it. But not the genuine women. Those know better. Nothing
can beat a true woman for a clear vision of reality; I would say a
cynical vision if I were not afraid of wounding your chivalrous
feelings--for which, by the by, women are not so grateful as you may
think, to fellows of your kind..."

"Upon my word, Marlow," I cried, "what are you flying out at me for like
this? I wouldn't use an ill-sounding word about women, but what right
have you to imagine that I am looking for gratitude?"

Marlow raised a soothing hand.

"There! There! I take back the ill-sounding word, with the remark,
though, that cynicism seems to me a word invented by hypocrites. But
let that pass. As to women, they know that the clamour for
opportunities for them to become something which they cannot