He would take her to Tanana. He would go with her to the States.
The matter would be settled in a reasonable and intelligent way, and
when he came back, he would bring her with him.
But beneath this undercurrent of decision fought the thing which his
will held down, and yet never quite throttled completely--that something
which urged him with an unconquerable persistence to hold with his own
hands what a glorious fate had given him, and to finish with John
Graham, if it ever came to that, in the madly desirable way he visioned
for himself in those occasional moments when the fires of temptation
blazed hottest.
The fourth night he said to Tautuk:
"If Keok should marry another man, what would you do?"
It was a moment before Tautuk looked at him, and in the herdsman's eyes
was a wild, mute question, as if suddenly there had leaped into his
stolid mind a suspicion which had never come to him before. Alan laid a
reassuring hand upon his arm.
"I don't mean she's going to, Tautuk," he laughed. "She loves you. I
know it. Only you are so stupid, and so slow, and so hopeless as a lover
that she is punishing you while she has the right--before she marries
you. But if she _should_ marry someone else, what would you do?"
"My brother?" asked Tautuk.
"No."
"A relative?"
"No.
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