To her astonishment
he took it quite composedly, saying neither yes nor no, and displaying
no feeling at all. He saw not the least objection to having Okoya visit
her house as often as he might please; in fact, he treated the matter
with great indifference. This was a decided relief to her, and she
anxiously waited for Okoya's first visit to impress him most favourably
regarding not merely herself but her husband.
Tyope indeed did not attach the slightest importance to Okoya
personally. The youth had no value for him at present; he did not
dislike him; he did not notice him at all. The boy was as
unobjectionable to him as any one else whom he did not need for his
purposes. But there were points connected with the union that affected
Tyope's designs very materially, and these would come out in course of
time, although he foresaw them already. In the first place,
intermarriage between the clans of Tanyi and Tyame was not favourable to
his scheme, which consisted in expelling gradually or violently four
clusters,--Tanyi, Tyame, Huashpa, and Tzitz, from the Rito. The
last-named cluster he wanted to get rid of on account of Shotaye, whom
he feared as much as he hated; the other three he wished to dispossess
of their houses, which were the best secured against decay on the
Tyuonyi, in order to lodge therein his own relatives and their
partisans.
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