Page:The Cave Girl - Edgar Rice Burroughs.pdf/195

 fact that Thandar failed to claim her as his own. She could not yet quite understand the ethics which separated them. Thandar tried repeatedly to explain to her that some day they were to return to his own world, and that that world would not accept her unless she had been joined to him according to the rites and ceremonies which it had originated.

“Will this marriage ceremony of which you tell me make you love me more?” asked Nadara.

Thandar laughed and took her in his arms.

“I could not love you more,” he replied.

“Then of what good is it?”

Thandar shook his head.

“It is difficult to explain,” he said, “especially to such a lovable little pagan as my Nadara. You must be satisfied to know—accept my word for it—that it is because I love you that we must wait.”

Now it was the girl’s turn to shake her head.

“I cannot understand,” she said. “My people take their mates as they will and they are satisfied and everybody is satisfied and all is well; but their king, who may mate as he chooses, waits until a man whom he does not know and who lives across the great water where we may never go, gives him permission to mate with one who loves him—with one whom he says he loves.”