He understood,
at the same moment, that this girl was not to be trifled
with--that she would have the truth out of him, first or last.
But he felt indescribably foolish.
"I suppose so," he answered lamely.
"And what about me?" asked Tannis.
When you come to think of it, this was an embarrassing question,
especially for Carey, who had believed that Tannis understood the
game, and played it for its own sake, as he did.
"I don't understand you, Tannis," he said hurriedly.
"You have made me love you," said Tannis.
The words sound flat enough on paper. They did not sound flat to
Tom, as repeated by Lazarre, and they sounded anything but flat
to Carey, hurled at him as they were by a woman trembling with
all the passions of her savage ancestry. Tannis had justified
her criticism of poetry. She had said her half-dozen words,
instinct with all the despair and pain and wild appeal that all
the poetry in the world had ever expressed.
They made Carey feel like a scoundrel. All at once he realized
how impossible it would be to explain matters to Tannis, and that
he would make a still bigger fool of himself, if he tried.
"I am very sorry," he stammered, like a whipped schoolboy.
"It is no matter," interrupted Tannis violently. "What
difference does it make about me--a half-breed girl? We breed
girls are only born to amuse the white men. That is so--is it
not? Then, when they are tired of us, they push us aside and go
back to their own kind.
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