nsferred to a very
tangible one. It may be, too, that conscience helped to enlarge it out
of all proportion.

Chapter 5

The Plot That Failed

For a month Tarzan was a regular and very welcome devotee at the shrine
of the beautiful Countess de Coude. Often he met other members of the
select little coterie that dropped in for tea of an afternoon. More
often Olga found devices that would give her an hour of Tarzan alone.

For a time she had been frightened by what Nikolas had insinuated. She
had not thought of this big, young man as anything more than friend,
but with the suggestion implanted by the evil words of her brother she
had grown to speculate much upon the strange force which seemed to
attract her toward the gray-eyed stranger. She did not wish to love
him, nor did she wish his love.

She was much younger than her husband, and without having realized it
she had been craving the haven of a friendship with one nearer her own
age. Twenty is shy in exchanging confidences with forty. Tarzan was
but two years her senior. He could understand her, she felt. Then he
was clean and honorable and chivalrous. She was not afraid of him.
That she could trust him she had felt instinctively from the first.

From a distance Rokoff had watched this growing intimacy with malicious
glee. Ever since he had learned that Tarzan knew that he was a Russian
spy there had been added to his hatred for the ape-man a great fear
that he would expose him. He was but waiting now until the moment was
propitious for a master stroke. He wanted to rid himself forever of
Tarzan, and at the same time reap an ample revenge for the humiliations
and defeats that he had suffered at his hands.

Tarzan was nearer to contentment than he had been since the peace and
tranquility of his jungle had been broken in upon by the advent of the
marooned Porter party. He enjoyed the pleasant social intercourse with
Olga's friends, while the friendship which had sprung up between the
fair countess and himself was a source of never-ending delight. It
broke in upon and dispersed his gloomy thoughts, and served as a balm
to his lacerated heart.

Sometimes D'Arnot accompanied him on his visits to the De Coude home,
for he had long known both Olga and the count. Occasionally De Coude
dropped in, but the multitudinous affairs of his official position and
the never-ending demands of politics kept him from home usually until
late at night.

Rok