s
the customary age for gipsies, against his desire, but because of his
will to see her in good hands and to give to Stan the succession to the
leadership of his tribe.

Only a few hours ago! What had brought about the change? Was it in him
or in her? That cursed Tartar, Mehmet Ali, with his silly offer of
twenty gold pieces! He, he had done it. Marcu looked again at his
daughter. Her eyelids trembled nervously and there was a little
repressed twitch about her mouth. She returned his glance at first, but
lowered her eyes under her father's steady gaze. "Already a shameless
creature," thought the old gipsy. But he could not bear to think that
way about his little daughter, about his Fanutza. He also feared that
she could feel his thoughts. He was ashamed of what passed through his
mind. Rapidly enough in self-defense he turned against her the sharp
edge of the argument. Why had she given him all those ugly thoughts?

"It will be as I said, Anastasidis. In a day or a week. When the river
has frozen, I come alone. And now, Fanutza, we go. Night is coming close
behind us. Come, you shall have all your silks."

The Greek accompanied them to the door. The cart that had brought the
merchandise to the boat of the waiting Mehmet was returning.

"The water is thickening," the driver greeted the gipsy and his
daughter.

They found Mehmet Ali seated in the boat expecting his passengers.

"Have you bought everything you intended?" the Tartar inquired as he
slid the oars into the hoops.

"Everything," Marcu answered as he watched his daughter from the corner
of an eye.

Vigorously Mehmet Ali rowed till well out into the wide river without
saying another word. His manner was so detached that the gipsy chief
thought the Tartar had already forgotten what had passed between them in
the morning. Sure enough. Why! He was an old man, Mehmet Ali. It was
possible he had been commissioned by some Dobrudgean Tartar chief to buy
him a wife. He had been refused and now he was no longer thinking about
her. He will look somewhere else, where his offer might not be scorned.
That offer of Mehmet had upset him. He had never thought of Fanutza
other than as a child. Of course he was marrying her to Stan--but it was
more like giving her a second father!

Suddenly the old gipsy looked at the Tartar who had lifted his oars from
the water and brought the boat to an abrupt standstill. Mehmet Ali laid
the paddles across the width of the boat and l