Mary. [Softly] She won’t like it.

Mr March.  Well, let’s see her, Mr Bly; let’s see her, if you don’t mind.

Bly.  Oh, I don’t mind, sir, and she won’t neither; she’s used to bein’ inspected by now.  Why! she ’ad her bumps gone over just before she came out!

Mr March. [Touched on the raw again] H’m!  Too bad!  Mary, go and fetch her.

Mary, with a doubting smile, goes out. [Rising] You might give me the details of that trial, Mr Bly.  I’ll see if I can’t write something that’ll make people sit up.  That’s the way to send Youth to hell!  How can a child who’s had a rope round her neck—!

Bly. [Who has been fumbling in his pocket, produces some yellow paper-cuttings clipped together] Here’s her references—­the whole literature of the case.  And here’s a letter from the chaplain in one of the prisons sayin’ she took a lot of interest in him; a nice young man, I believe. [He suddenly brushes a tear out of his eye with the back of his hand] I never thought I could ‘a felt like I did over her bein’ in prison.  Seemed a crool senseless thing—­that pretty girl o’ mine.  All over a baby that hadn’t got used to bein’ alive.  Tain’t as if she’d been follerin’ her instincts; why, she missed that baby something crool.

Mr March.  Of course, human life—­even an infant’s——­

Bly.  I know you’ve got to ’ave a close time for it.  But when you come to think how they take ’uman life in Injia and Ireland, and all those other places, it seems ‘ard to come down like a cartload o’ bricks on a bit of a girl that’s been carried away by a moment’s abiration.

Mr March. [Who is reading the cuttings] H’m!  What hypocrites we are!

Bly.  Ah!  And ’oo can tell ’oo’s the father?  She never give us his name.  I think the better of ’er for that.

Mr March.  Shake hands, Mr Bly.  So do I. [Bly wipes his hand, and Mr March shakes it] Loyalty’s loyalty—­especially when we men benefit by it.

Bly.  That’s right, sir.

Mary has returned with faith Bly, who stands demure and pretty on the far side of the table, her face an embodiment of the pathetic watchful prison faculty of adapting itself to whatever may be best for its owner at the moment.  At this moment it is obviously best for her to look at the ground, and yet to take in the faces of Mr March and Mary without their taking her face in.  A moment, for all, of considerable embarrassment.

Mr March. [Suddenly] We’ll, here we are!

     The remark attracts faith; she raises her eyes to his softly with a
     little smile, and drops them again.

So you want to be our parlour-maid?

Faith.  Yes, please.