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.
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