ape-man. For, from his
thoughts alone, you could never have gleaned the truth--that he had
been born to a gentle English lady or that his sire had been an English
nobleman of time-honored lineage.

Lost to Tarzan of the Apes was the truth of his origin. That he was
John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, with a seat in the House of Lords, he did
not know, nor, knowing, would have understood.

Yes, Teeka was indeed beautiful!

Of course Kala had been beautiful--one's mother is always that--but
Teeka was beautiful in a way all her own, an indescribable sort of way
which Tarzan was just beginning to sense in a rather vague and hazy
manner.

For years had Tarzan and Teeka been play-fellows, and Teeka still
continued to be playful while the young bulls of her own age were
rapidly becoming surly and morose. Tarzan, if he gave the matter much
thought at all, probably reasoned that his growing attachment for the
young female could be easily accounted for by the fact that of the
former playmates she and he alone retained any desire to frolic as of
old.

But today, as he sat gazing upon her, he found himself noting the
beauties of Teeka's form and features--something he never had done
before, since none of them had aught to do with Teeka's ability to race
nimbly through the lower terraces of the forest in the primitive games
of tag and hide-and-go-seek which Tarzan's fertile brain evolved.
Tarzan scratched his head, running his fingers deep into the shock of
black hair which framed his shapely, boyish face--he scratched his head
and sighed. Teeka's new-found beauty became as suddenly his despair.
He envied her the handsome coat of hair which covered her body. His
own smooth, brown hide he hated with a hatred born of disgust and
contempt. Years back he had harbored a hope that some day he, too,
would be clothed in hair as were all his brothers and sisters; but of
late he had been forced to abandon the delectable dream.

Then there were Teeka's great teeth, not so large as the males, of
course, but still mighty, handsome things by comparison with Tarzan's
feeble white ones. And her beetling brows, and broad, flat nose, and
her mouth! Tarzan had often practiced making his mouth into a little
round circle and then puffing out his cheeks while he winked his eyes
rapidly; but he felt that he could never do it in the same cute and
irresistible way in which Teeka did it.

And as he watched her that afternoon, and wondered, a young