“She is very lovely,” he softly said.
“Is that a thing to be sad about?”
“Yes. Lentala can never be as sweet and beautiful.”
“She is as sweet and beautiful as Annabel, and—and—what shall I say?—more fascinating.”
His face was turned away, and he was silent. After a while he faced me, and said, while observing me closely:
“But she belongs to your kind, your world.”
“My heart finds my kind, and that is my world.” He again turned away. In trying to find a reason why any of this mattered to him, or why he appeared in a measure to resent Annabel, the old suspicion that had lodged in a corner of my mind came forth. The remarkable difference between Lentala and her brother on one hand and the natives on the other must have some special explanation, and Beelo must have a secret which he had a good reason for guarding. Christopher and I had probably been the only white men to touch their lives, and there was in them that which knew and claimed its own. It was a hungry demand, and jealous. To see the desired companionship subject to an older claim, such as Annabel’s, was the finding of a barrier. I determined to probe for the secret by indirect means.
“The soul that finds its kind finds its world, Beelo,” I said, “and souls have neither race nor color. Would you like to hear a strange little story?”
“Yes!” he eagerly answered.
I sat down, and he seated himself facing me, keenly interested.