in your restrictive measures. His love for animals--his desire,
for example, to see this trained ape--is only natural in a healthy,
normal boy of his age. Just because he wants to see Ajax is
no indication that he would wish to marry an ape, and even should
he, far be it from you Jane to have the right to cry `shame!'" and
John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, put an arm about his wife, laughing
good-naturedly down into her upturned face before he bent his head
and kissed her. Then, more seriously, he continued: "You have
never told Jack anything concerning my early life, nor have you
permitted me to, and in this I think that you have made a mistake.
Had I been able to tell him of the experiences of Tarzan of the
Apes I could doubtless have taken much of the glamour and romance
from jungle life that naturally surrounds it in the minds of those
who have had no experience of it. He might then have profited by
my experience, but now, should the jungle lust ever claim him, he
will have nothing to guide him but his own impulses, and I know
how powerful these may be in the wrong direction at times."

But Lady Greystoke only shook her head as she had a hundred other
times when the subject had claimed her attention in the past.

"No, John," she insisted, "I shall never give my consent to the
implanting in Jack's mind of any suggestion of the savage life
which we both wish to preserve him from."

It was evening before the subject was again referred to and then
it was raised by Jack himself. He had been sitting, curled in a
large chair, reading, when he suddenly looked up and addressed his
father.