Out of Context

The Return of Tarzan
Edgar Rice Burroughs

He deeply regretted that he had been hasty, but he had loved her for so long a time, and so devotedly, that he thought that every one must know it.

“From the first time I saw you, Hazel,” he said, “I have loved you. I am willing to wait, for I am certain that so great and pure a love as mine will be rewarded. All that I care to know is that you do not love another. Will you tell me?”

“I have never been in love in my life,” she replied, and he was quite satisfied. On the way home that night he purchased a steam yacht, and built a million-dollar villa on the Black Sea.

The next day Hazel Strong enjoyed one of the happiest surprises of her life–she ran face to face upon Jane Porter as she was coming out of a jeweler’s shop.

“Why, Jane Porter!” she exclaimed. “Where in the world did you drop from? Why, I can’t believe my own eyes.”

“Well, of all things!” cried the equally astonished Jane. “And here I have been wasting whole reams of perfectly good imagination picturing you in Baltimore–the very idea!” And she threw her arms about her friend once more, and kissed her a dozen times.

By the time mutual explanations had been made Hazel knew that Lord Tennington’s yacht had put in at Cape Town for at least a week’s stay, and at the end of that time was to continue on her voyage–this time up the West Coast–and so back to England.