Tihua. Do you like her?" and he looked at his mother pleadingly,
as if asking her forgiveness and her consent to his choice.

The woman's brow clouded at the mention of a name so hateful to her. She
looked hard at her son and said in a tone of bitter reproach,--

"And you go with that girl?"

"Why not!" His face darkened also.

"Have I not told you what kind of man Tyope is?"

"The girl is no Koshare," he answered evasively.

"But her mother is, and he."

Both became silent. Okoya stared before him; his appetite was gone; he
was angry, and could not eat any more.

What right had this woman, although she was his mother, to reprove him
because he was fond of a girl whose father she did not like! Was the
girl responsible for the deeds of her parents? No! So he reasoned at
once, and then his temper overcame him. How could his mother dare to
speak one single word against the Koshare! Had she not betrayed him to
them? In his thoughts the hatred which she pretended to display against
the Koshare appeared no longer sincere; it seemed to him hypocrisy,
duplicity, deception. Such deceit could mean only the darkest, the most
dangerous, designs. With the Indian the superlative of depravity is
witchcraft. Okoya revolved in his mind whether his mother was not
perhaps his most dangerous enemy.

On the other hand, Say Koitza, when she began to question her son, had
in view a certain object. She was anxious to find out who the maiden was
whose looks had at once charmed her. Next she was curious to know
whether the meeting of the two was accidental or not. Therefore the
leading question, "And you go with that girl?" Under ordinary
circumstances his affirmative reply might have filled her motherly heart
with joy, for Mitsha's appearance had struck her fancy; but now it
filled her with dismay. Nothing good to her could result from a union
between her child and the daughter of Tyope. That union would be sure to
lead Okoya over to the home of his betrothed, which was the home of her
mother, where he could not fail to gradually succumb to the influence
which that mother of Mitsha, a sensual, cunning, sly woman utterly
subservient to her husband, would undoubtedly exert upon him. It was not
maternal jealousy that beset her now and filled her with flaming
passion, it was fear for her own personal safety. Under the influence of
sudden displeasure human thought runs sometimes astray with terrific
swiftness. Say Koitza saw her son alread