Our women may lend themselves to you a bit for a girl's fancy, or if you pay them well; but the Romany blood comes back to the Romany folk."
The Gadfly's face remained as cold and steady as before.
"Has she gone away with a gipsy camp, or merely to live with your son?"
The woman burst out laughing.
"Do you think of following her and trying to win her back?
It's too late, sir; you should have thought of that before!"
"No; I only want to know the truth, if you will tell it to me."
She shrugged her shoulders; it was hardly worth while to abuse a person who took it so meekly.
"The truth, then, is that she met my son in the road the day you left her, and spoke to him in the Romany tongue; and when he saw she was one of our folk, in spite of her fine clothes, he fell in love with her bonny face, as OUR men fall in love, and took her to our camp.
She told us all her trouble, and sat crying and sobbing, poor lassie, till our hearts were sore for her.
We comforted her as best we could; and at last she took off her fine clothes and put on the things our lasses wear, and gave herself to my son, to be his woman and to have him for her man.
He won't say to her:
'I don't love you,' and: 'I've other things to do.'
When a woman is young, she wants a man; and what sort of man are you, that you can't even kiss a handsome girl when she puts her arms round your neck?"
"You said," he interrupted, "that you had brought me a message from her."
"Yes; I stopped behind when the camp went on, so as to give it.
She told me to say that she has had enough of your folk and their hair-splitting and their sluggish blood; and that she wants to get back to her own people and be free.
'Tell him,' she said, 'that I am a woman, and that I loved him; and that is why I would not be his harlot any longer.'
The lassie was right to come away.
There's no harm in a girl getting a bit of money out of her good looks if she can--that's what good looks are for; but a Romany lass has nothing to do with LOVING a man of your race."
The Gadfly stood up.
"Is that all the message?" he said. "Then tell her, please, that I think she has done right, and that I hope she will be happy.
That is all I have to say.
Good-night!"
He stood perfectly still until the garden gate closed behind her; then he sat down and covered his face with both hands.
Another blow on the cheek!
Was no rag of pride to be left him--no shred of self-respect?
Surely he had suffered everything that man can endure; his very heart had been dragged in the mud and trampled under the feet of the passers-by; there was no spot in his soul where someone's contempt was not branded in, where someone's mockery had not left its iron trace.
And now this gipsy girl, whom he had picked up by the wayside-- even she had the whip in her hand.
Shaitan whined at the door, and the Gadfly rose to let him in.
The dog rushed up to his master with his usual frantic manifestations of delight, but soon, understanding that something was wrong, lay down on the rug beside him, and thrust a cold nose into the listless hand.
An hour later Gemma came up to the front door.
No one appeared in answer to her knock; Bianca, finding that the Gadfly did not want any dinner, had slipped out to visit a neighbour's cook.
She had left the door open, and a light burning in the hall.
Gemma, after waiting for some time, decided to enter and try if she could find the Gadfly, as she wished to speak to him about an important message which had come from Bailey.
She knocked at the study door, and the Gadfly's voice answered from within:
"You can go away, Bianca.
I don't want anything."
She softly opened the door.
The room was quite dark, but the passage lamp threw a long stream of light across it as she entered, and she saw the Gadfly sitting alone, his head sunk on his breast, and the dog asleep at his feet.
"It is I," she said.
He started up.
"Gemma,---- Gemma!
Oh, I have wanted you so!"
Before she could speak he was kneeling on the floor at her feet and hiding his face in the folds of her dress.
His whole body was shaken with a convulsive tremor that was worse to see than tears.
She stood still.
There was nothing she could do to help him--nothing.
This was the bitterest thing of all.
She must stand by and look on passively --she who would have died to spare him pain.