ing!
The last of the monkeys had flicked away. Skag arose and held his hand
high, palm toward her. She beckoned, but still came forward. Skag
moved without haste, but rapidly. All the beauty and wonder of Carlin
was the same; it lived in his heart, integrate and unparalleled as
ever, but some power had come to him from the cough of the tiger.
Around all the fear, even for her life, was the one splendid
thing--that she had followed him into the monkey glen.
She was nearing the place where the cough had come from, yet Skag did
not run. A second time he held up his hand, palm outward, but she
still came forward laughing.
"You ran from me?"
"I did not think of you coming so far--to-day."
Skag had stepped between her and the river, turning her toward the
city, but Carlin drew back.
"I have come so far. I want to go to our--to the monkey glen!"
She was watching him strangely. Skag understood something that moment:
that he might know of Carlin's delight through her eyes, of all joy and
good that he might bring, but that he should never know from her eyes
if he brought hurt. Skag put this back into the deep place of his mind.
"All right. We'll go back," he said. "They were here--the whole
troupe. Just a minute ago, they swung away--"
He saw for an instant her wonderment that he had come alone. She would
have been very glad to see the monkey people again; she could not quite
see why she should have missed this; she did not understand his
words--that he had not expected her to follow into the glen.
She was sitting down on her own log, but he stood. Skag was driven to
speak. The need had now to do with one of his favourite words. It was
a matter of _equity_ that he speak. The words came in a slow ordered
tone:
"I was waiting for you there--back at the edge of the jungle--but it
came to me that I was not ready."
Carlin had been looking away into the three-lanes. Her eyes came up to
his.
"Not ready?" she said.
"All night I could only remember one thing--"
"What thing?"
"That you had not told me you would come again."
Carlin's shoulders lifted a little. She cleared her throat, saying:
"I thought of it."
"This morning the idea occurred that you might come to the jungle at
noon--like yesterday, but the hours wouldn't pass after that. I met
something different that would not be quiet--"
"Where?"
"I mean in myself."
Carlin's eyes widened a little, but she only said:
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