ection was in her tones.
He knew dimly that the thing he shrank from belonged to nothing Romany
in her, but to that scornful pride of the Gorgios which had kept the
Romany outside the social pale.

"Only breath and beauty!" she had said, and that she could laugh at his
handsomeness was certain proof that it was not wilfulness which rejected
his claims. Now there was rage in his heart greater than had been in
that of Gabriel Druse.

"I have come a long way for a good thing," he said with head thrown
back, "and if 'breath and beauty' is all I bring, yet that is because
what my father had in his purse has made my 'Ry' rich"--he flung a hand
out towards Gabriel Druse--"and because I keep to the open road as
my father did, true to my Romany blood. The wind and the sun and the
fatness of the field have made me what I am, and never in my life had I
an ache or a pain. You have the breath and the beauty, too, but you have
the gold also; and what you are and what you have is mine by the Romany
law, and it will come to me, by long and by last."

Fleda turned quietly to her father. "If it is true concerning the three
thousand pounds, give it to him and let him go. It will buy him what he
would never get by what he is."

The old man flashed a look of anger upon her. "He came empty, he shall
go empty. Against my commands, his insolence has brought him here. And
let him keep his eyes skinned, or he shall have no breath with which to
return. I am Gabriel Druse, lord over all the Romany people in all the
world from Teheran to San Diego, and across the seas and back again; and
my will shall be done."

He paused, reflecting for a moment, though his fingers opened and shut
in anger. "This much I will do," he added. "When I return to my people
I will deal with this matter in the place where Lemuel Fawe died. By the
place called Starzke, I will come to reckoning, and then and then only."

"When?" asked the young man eagerly.

Gabriel Druse's eyes flashed. "When I return as I will to return." Then
suddenly he added: "This much I will say, it shall be before--"

The girl stopped him. "It shall be when it shall be. Am I a chattel to
be bartered by any will except my own? I will have naught to do with any
Romany law. Not by Starzke shall the matter be dealt with, but here by
the River Sagalac. This Romany has no claim upon me. My will is my own;
I myself and no other shall choose my husband, and he will never be a
Romany."

The young