"
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.
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