“Is that all?”

“Okoya is your child as well as mine,” Say emphatically stated; “it cannot be immaterial to you whom he selects for his wife.”

“I don’t bother about that,” he yawned, “The mot[=a]tza is old enough to care for himself.  It is his business and yours, koitza.  It does not concern me, and still less you,” turning to his brother.

“Neither do I take part in it without request from Okoya,” answered Hayoue, sharply.  “But Okoya has spoken to me about it and begged me to see his mother in his behalf.  I have therefore a right to be here and to speak.”

“We expect sa nashtio also,” the woman remarked.

“Nashtio!  Who?  Tyope?” Zashue looked at his wife in surprise.

“Tyope!” Say exclaimed, “he shall never cross my threshold.  I mean Topanashka; he shall give his speech; him we want and expect.”

“In that case you do not need me,” replied Zashue, attempting to rise.  “I go to my people.”  Hayoue touched his arm.

“Satyumishe,” he said gravely, “it is not well for you to leave us now.  We must speak with you more.”

“It is none of my business,” growled the elder brother.

“And yet you must hear about it, for Mitsha is a daughter of the Koshare.”

“She is not Koshare herself, her mother only and Tyame hanutsh are entitled to speak.”  Zashue was becoming impatient.

“Hachshtze,” Say interfered, “I know that you are not fond of Okoya.  Still he is good.”

“Far better than Shyuote,” interjected the younger brother.

She continued,—­

“But mark my words; is it right that our child should go to the house where dwells the wife of a man who for a long time past has sought to torment me, who harbours ill-will toward my hanutsh and your hanutsh, and who, notwithstanding that you believe him to be your friend and are more attached to him than you are to your wife and child, is not your friend at all?”

Zashue was visibly impressed by these words of his wife.  Was she perhaps aware of the secret motives of the upturning of her household, which he and Tyope had performed yesterday?  He could hardly imagine that she could know anything about it, and yet her utterances intimated some occurrence of the past that had opened a wide breach forever between her and Tyope.  Might not that occurrence have prompted the latter to his accusation against Say?  This was an entirely new idea to him, and, while he felt ashamed of having yielded to Tyope against his own wife, he now began to suspect the real motives which inspired the man in his denunciations.  He replied hastily,—­

“I am not with Tyope.”

“He is your best friend,” Hayoue objected.

“That is not true.”

“Hachshtze,” Say said in a tone of serious reminder, “speak not thus.  I know that you and Tyope are good to each other.  I know that he gives you advice, and I know too”—­her voice rose and grew solemn—­“that you have told him many things which neither Tzitz hanutsh nor Tanyi hanutsh like him to know.”