t coldly calculating by nature, but training, environment
and heredity had all combined to teach her to reason even in matters of
the heart.

That she had been carried off her feet by the strength of the young
giant when his great arms were about her in the distant African forest,
and again today, in the Wisconsin woods, seemed to her only
attributable to a temporary mental reversion to type on her part--to
the psychological appeal of the primeval man to the primeval woman in
her nature.

If he should never touch her again, she reasoned, she would never feel
attracted toward him. She had not loved him, then. It had been
nothing more than a passing hallucination, super-induced by excitement
and by personal contact.

Excitement would not always mark their future relations, should she
marry him, and the power of personal contact eventually would be dulled
by familiarity.

Again she glanced at Clayton. He was very handsome and every inch a
gentleman. She should be very proud of such a husband.

And then he spoke--a minute sooner or a minute later might have made
all the difference in the world to three lives--but chance stepped in
and pointed out to Clayton the psychological moment.

"You are free now, Jane," he said. "Won't you say yes--I will devote
my life to making you very happy."

"Yes," she whispered.

That evening in the little waiting room at the station Tarzan caught
Jane alone for a moment.

"You are free now, Jane," he said, "and _I_ have come across the ages
out of the dim and distant past from the lair of the primeval man to
claim you--for your sake I have become a civilized man--for your sake I
have crossed oceans and continents--for your sake I will be whatever
you will me to be. I can make you happy, Jane, in the life you know
and love best. Will you marry me?"

For the first time she realized the depths of the man's love--all that
he had accomplished in so short a time solely for love of her. Turning
her head she buried her face in her arms.

What had she done? Because she had been afraid she might succumb to
the pleas of this giant, she had burned her bridges behind her--in her
groundless apprehension that she might make a terrible mistake, she had
made a worse one.

And then she told him all--told him the truth word by word, without
attempting to shield herself or condone her error.

"What can we do?" he asked. "You have admitted that you love me. You
know that I love you; bu