If you had told Carey that he was playing with fire he would have laughed at you . In the first place he was not in the slightest degree in love with Tannis -- he merely admired and liked her . In the second place , it never occurred to him that Tannis might be in love with him . Why , he had never attempted any love-making with her ! And , above all , he was obsessed with that aforesaid fatal idea that Tannis was like the women he had associated with all his life , in reality as well as in appearance . He did not know enough of the racial characteristics to understand . But , if Carey thought his relationship with Tannis was that of friendship merely , he was the only one at the Flats who did think so . All the half-breeds and quarter-breeds and any-fractional breeds there believed that he meant to marry Tannis . There would have been nothing surprising to them in that . They did not know that Carey 's second cousin was a baronet , and they would not have understood that it need make any difference , if they had . They thought that rich old Auguste 's heiress , who had been to school for four years in Prince Albert , was a catch for anybody . Old Auguste himself shrugged his shoulders over it and was well-pleased enough . An Englishman was a prize by way of a husband for a half-breed girl , even if he were only a telegraph operator . Young Paul Dumont worshipped Carey , and the half-Scotch mother , who might have understood , was dead . In all the Flats there were but two people who disapproved of the match they thought an assured thing . One of these was the little priest , Father Gabriel . He liked Tannis , and he liked Carey ; but he shook his head dubiously when he heard the gossip of the shacks and teepees . Religions might mingle , but the different bloods -- ah , it was not the right thing ! Tannis was a good girl , and a beautiful one ; but she was no fit mate for the fair , thorough-bred Englishman . Father Gabriel wished fervently that Jerome Carey might soon be transferred elsewhere .
He even went to Prince Albert and did a little wire-pulling on his own account , but nothing came XXXXX it .
In above at for like of over that to with