piously.

"Wicked words," muttered Chaldea tossing her black locks. "And them true
Romany as was your milk tongue. No wonder the Gentiles don't fancy you a
true one of the road. If I were queen of--"

A vicious little devil flashed out of the old woman's eyes, and her
respectable looks changed on the instant. "Tol yer chib, or I'll heat
the bones of you with the fires of Bongo Tem," she screamed furiously,
and in a mixture of her mother-tongue and English. "Ja pukenus, slut of
the gutter," she shook her fist, and Chaldea, with an insulting laugh,
moved away. "Bengis your see! Bengis your see! And that, my generous
lady," she added, turning round with a sudden resumption of her fawning
respectability, "means 'the devil in your heart,' which I spoke
witchly-like to the child. Ah, but she's a bad one."

Miss Greeby laughed outright. "This is more like the real thing."

"Poor Chaldea," said Lambert. "You're too hard on her, mother."

"And you, my sweet gentleman, ain't hard enough. She'll sell you, and
get Kara to put the knife between your ribs."

"Why should he? I'm not in love with the girl."

"The tree don't care for the ivy, but the ivy loves the tree," said
Mother Cockleshell darkly. "You're a good and kind gentleman, and I
don't want to see that slut pick your bones."

"So I think," whispered Miss Greeby in his ear. "You play with fire."

"Aye, my good lady," said Mother Cockleshell, catching the whisper--she
had the hearing of a cat. "With the fire of Bongo Tern, the which you
may call The Crooked Land," and she pointed significantly downward.

"Hell, do you mean?" asked Miss Greeby in her bluff way.

"The Crooked Land we Romany calls it," insisted the old woman. "And the
child will go there, for her witchly doings."

"She's too good-looking to lose as a model, at all events," said
Lambert, hitching his shoulders. "I shall leave you to have your fortune
told, Clara, and follow Chaldea to pacify her."

As he went toward the centre of the camp, Miss Greeby took a hesitating
step as though to follow him. In her opinion Chaldea was much too
good-looking, let alone clever, for Lambert to deal with alone. Gentilla
Stanley saw the look on the hard face and the softening of the hard eyes
as the cheeks grew rosy red. From this emotion she drew her conclusions,
and she chuckled to think of how true a fortune she could tell the
visitor on these premises. Mother Cockleshell's fortune-telling was not
entirely fra