The Return Of Tarzan

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Edgar Rice Burroughs

“Magnifique!” said the Countess de Coude, quietly.

“What?” asked the count. He turned to his young wife. “What is magnificent?” He looked around the deck for the thing she admired.

“Oh, nothing, my dear,” the countess replied. Her cheek turned a little red. “I was thinking about the tall buildings in New York.” She sat back in her steamer chair. She opened the magazine again. “Nothing” had made her drop it onto her lap.

Her husband began to read his book again. He was a little surprised. Three days out from New York, his countess suddenly admired these buildings. Only a short time before, she had called them horrid.

Soon the count put down his book. “It is very boring, Olga,” he said. “I will find some other people who are bored too. Then we can play cards.”

“You are not very polite, my husband,” the young woman said, smiling. “But I am bored too, so I forgive you. Go and play your boring old cards.”

When he had gone, she looked slyly at a tall young man. He was lying in a chair not far away.

“MAGNIFIQUE!” she whispered again.

The Countess Olga de Coude was twenty. Her husband was forty. She was a faithful and loyal wife. But she had not chosen her husband herself. Her titled Russian father and fate had chosen him. So she was probably not wildly in love with him. Still, she gave a tiny cry of approval at a splendid young stranger. This did not mean she was disloyal to her husband. She only admired him, as one admires a fine animal of any kind. And the young man was certainly good to look at.