“Most decidedly.”  Mr. Travers raised his head, though of course not his voice.  “You ought to have remained in the yacht amongst white men, your servants, the sailing-master, the crew whose duty it was to. . . .  Who would have been ready to die for you.”

“I wonder why they should have—­and why I should have asked them for that sacrifice.  However, I have no doubt they would have died.  Or would you have preferred me to take up my quarters on board that man’s brig?  We were all fairly safe there.  The real reason why I insisted on coming in here was to be nearer to you—­to see for myself what could be or was being done. . . .  But really if you want me to explain my motives then I may just as well say nothing.  I couldn’t remain outside for days without news, in a state of horrible doubt.  We couldn’t even tell whether you and d’Alcacer were still alive till we arrived here.  You might have been actually murdered on the sandbank, after Rajah Hassim and that girl had gone away; or killed while going up the river.  And I wanted to know at once, as soon as possible.  It was a matter of impulse.  I went off in what I stood in without delaying a moment.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Travers.  “And without even thinking of having a few things put up for me in a bag.  No doubt you were in a state of excitement.  Unless you took such a tragic view that it seemed to you hardly worth while to bother about my clothes.”

“It was absolutely the impulse of the moment.  I could have done nothing else.  Won’t you give me credit for it?”

Mr. Travers raised his eyes again to his wife’s face.  He saw it calm, her attitude reposeful.  Till then his tone had been resentful, dull, without sarcasm.  But now he became slightly pompous.

“No.  As a matter of fact, as a matter of experience, I can’t credit you with the possession of feelings appropriate to your origin, social position, and the ideas of the class to which you belong.  It was the heaviest disappointment of my life.  I had made up my mind not to mention it as long as I lived.  This, however, seems an occasion which you have provoked yourself.  It isn’t at all a solemn occasion.  I don’t look upon it as solemn at all.  It’s very disagreeable and humiliating.  But it has presented itself.  You have never taken a serious interest in the activities of my life which of course are its distinction and its value.  And why you should be carried away suddenly by a feeling toward the mere man I don’t understand.”

“Therefore you don’t approve,” Mrs. Travers commented in an even tone.  “But I assure you, you may safely.  My feeling was of the most conventional nature, exactly as if the whole world were looking on.  After all, we are husband and wife.  It’s eminently fitting that I should be concerned about your fate.  Even the man you distrust and dislike so much (the warmest feeling, let me tell you, that I ever saw you display) even that man found my conduct perfectly proper.  His own word.  Proper.  So eminently proper that it altogether silenced his objections.”