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As he asked the question he held her hand beneath his own on the desk, but he did not dare to look into her face. He had been told by his wife that there was somebody else; that the girl's mind was running upon Mr. Surtees, because Mr. Surtees was a gentleman. He was thinking of Mr. Surtees, and certainly not of Reginald Morton.
A moment more and Jane Clayton's safety might have been assured, even though Numa, the lion, was already gathering himself in preparation for a charge; but Fate, already all too cruel, now outdid herself the wind veered suddenly for a few moments, the scent spoor that would have led the ape-man to the girl's side was wafted in the opposite direction; Tarzan passed within fifty yards of the tragedy that was being enacted in the glade, and the opportunity was gone beyond recall.
Immediately the bough bobbed under, but he was prepared for that, and after a brief rest, he set the girl's hair between his teeth once more, and with both hands free began to work from bough to bough. One that he clutched gave an ominous crack. It began to sag in a dangerous way, and at the fork where it joined a larger branch a white slit appeared and began to grow wider.
She had also a strong vein of inherited social ambition, and she and her husband welcomed Rose with greater effusion than ever, in proportion as she was more beautiful and more indisputably gifted than ever. They placed themselves and their house at the girl's service, partly out of genuine admiration and good-nature, partly also because they divined in her a profitable social appendage.
Slowly the moments passed, and the girl's gaze roved from the face of the portrait along the walls of the little room.
"Doesn't Helen hate it? Of course she would never say so to us, but she must! Everybody seems so dreadfully disagreeable; and there is really no one Helen could know." "Why, Helen knows them all," answered Gifford in his slow way, looking down at the girl's impulsive face. "Lois," said her father, "you are too emphatic in your way of speaking; be more mild. I don't like gush."
He had promised to buy her if he could, and to set her free: Stephen had made up his mind: He shouldered his way after Jenkins. "Now, gentlemen," shouted the auctioneer when he had finished his oration upon the girl's attractions, "what 'tin I bid? Eight hundred?" Stephen caught his breath. There was a long pause no one cared to start the bidding. "Come, gentlemen, come!
"You'll follow the call of your mother by the mouth of me, Elspeth Blair. Forget these havers, Janet, and come back like a good Christian soul. Mount and be quick. There's room behind me on Bess." The words were spoken in a kindly, wheedling tone, and the girl's face broke into the prettiest of smiles.
"It is some years since we met, but I have not forgotten the pretty face of Miss Barbara," he cried. "A young girl's face it was then, but it is a stately young lady's now." Barbara laughed. "Your brother has just told me you had arrived at West Lynne; but I did not know you were so close to me. He has been asking me if I am ready for some pic "
The Chief Justice then went on to repeat the little girl's testimony as to these "brokers of mankind," and the child's knowledge, from personal observation of these purchases and sales, to which he adds: "Let me here ask, Is the trade, or rather profession, 'broker of mankind, also a sacred China custom?
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