“That is surprising,” Tako repeated.
“Is it?”
“Very. That I should care what any woman thinks of me, particularly a captive girl—but I do. And I realize, Jane, that our marriage system is very different from yours. Repugnant to you, perhaps. Is it?”
“Yes,” she murmured. His gaze held her; she tried to shake it off, but it held her.
“Then I will tell you this: I have always felt that the glittering luxury of a large harem is in truth a very empty measure of man’s greatness. For Tako there will be more manly things. The power of leadership—the power to rule my world. When I got that idea, it occurred to me also that for a man like me there might be some one woman—to stand alone by my side and rule our world.”
His hand touched her arm, and though she shuddered, she left it there. Tako added with a soft vibrant tenseness. “I am beginning to think that you are that woman.”
There was a sound in the corridor outside the door—enough to cause Tako momentarily to swing his gaze. It broke the spell for Jane; with a shock she realized that like a snake he had been holding her fascinated. His gaze came back at once, but now she shook off his hand from her arm.
“Tolla told me you—you said something like that to her,” Jane said with an ironic smile.
It angered him. The earnestness dropped from him like a mask. “Oh, did she? And you have been mocking me, you two girls?”
HE stood up, his giant length bringing his head almost to the vaulted ceiling of the little compartment. “What degradation for Tako that women should discuss his heart.”