Bertram coloured up like a boy. If she had been in any doubt before as to his sincerity and simplicity, she could be so no longer. “Oh, I forgot about the taboo,” he said. “I'm so sorry I hurt you. I was only thinking what a pity those two nice girls should be cheated out of their expected pleasure by a silly question of pretended mourning, where even you yourself, who have got to wear it, don't assume that you feel the slightest tinge of sorrow. I remember now, of course, what a lady told me in London the other day: your young girls aren't even allowed to go out travelling alone without their mother or brothers, in order to taboo them absolutely beforehand for the possible husband who may some day marry them. It was a pitiful tale. I thought it all most painful and shocking.” “But you don't mean to say,” Frida cried, equally shocked and astonished in her turn, “that you'd let young girls go out alone anywhere with unmarried men? Goodness gracious, how dreadful!” “Why not?” Bertram asked, with transparent simplicity. “Why, just consider the consequences!” Frida exclaimed, with a blush, after a moment's hesitation. “There couldn't be ANY consequences, unless they both liked and respected one another,” Bertram answered in the most matter-of-course voice in the world; “and if they do that, we think at home it's nobody's business to interfere in any way with the free expression of their individuality, in this the most sacred and personal matter of human intercourse. It's the one point of private conduct about which we're all at home most sensitively anxious not to meddle, to interfere, or even to criticise. We think such affairs should be left entirely to the hearts and consciences of the two persons concerned, who must surely know best how they feel towards one another. But I remember having met lots of taboos among other barbarians, in much the same way, to preserve the mere material purity of their women--a thing we at home wouldn't dream of even questioning. In New Ireland, for instance, I saw poor girls confined for four or five years in small wickerwork cages, where they're kept in the dark, and not even allowed to set foot on the ground on any pretext. They're shut up in these prisons when they're about fourteen, and there they're kept, strictly tabooed, till they're just going to be married. I went to see them myself; it was a horrid sight. The poor creatures were confined in a dark, close hut, without air or ventilation, in that stifling climate, which is as unendurable from heat as this one is from cold and damp and fogginess; and there they sat in cages, coarsely woven from broad leaves of the pandanus trees, so that no light could enter; for the people believed that light would kill them. No man might see them, because it was close taboo; but at last, with great difficulty, I persuaded the chief and the old lady who guarded them to let them come out for a minute to look at me. A lot