“My daughter desires to go to the house of the Tuan Vetter,” he said without an inflection in his voice. “She loves him. But I would ask your advice before she goes.”
Cary moved abruptly. The younger of our two visitors caressed the handle of his kris with fingers that quivered suddenly. The girl stared at us defiantly—and then her eyes clouded with abysmal shame. But a moment later they were flaming.
“Well?” asked the doctor. His face did not even move a muscle.
“There is another woman in the Tuan Vetter’s house,” said Buro Sitt. “Who also loves him. Will it be the custom of the white men to send her away when my daughter goes to him?”
“He might,” said the doctor tonelessly, “and he might not. It would be considered disgraceful to him among other white men to have one woman living in his house if he were not married to her. It would be doubly disgraceful to have two. And of course it would be called disgraceful in the women. They would be scorned by all white men. Not scorned—despised.”
The girl’s face did not change. She was staring defiantly at the three of us. The younger man caressed the handle of his kris.
“Would you, then,” asked Buro Sitt woodenly, “point out to him that he should send away this other woman when my daughter comes to him?”
The doctor held up his hand. He looked grim, all of a sudden.
“Buro Sitt,” he said quietly, “you are lying.”
Buro Sitt’s hand dropped to his sash with a sudden movement. Then he bit his lip.