It flashed upon her how different it would have been, if he and she had
been Romanys, and this thing had happened over there in the far lands she
knew so well. Who would have hinted at shame, if she had taken him to her
father's tan or gone to his tan and tended him as a man might tend a man?
Humanity would have been the only convention; there would have been no
sex, no false modesty, no babble, no reproach. If it had been a man as
old as the oldest or as young as Jethro Fawe it would have made no
difference.
As young as Jethro Fawe! Why was it that now she could never think of the
lost and abandoned Romany life without thinking also of Jethro Fawe? Why
should she hate him, despise him, revolt against him, and yet feel that,
as it were by invisible cords, he drew her back to that which she had
forsworn, to the Past which dragged at her feet? The Romany was not dead
in her; her real struggle was yet to come; and in a vague but prophetic
way she realized it. She was not yet one with the settled western world.
As they came close to Ingolby's house she heard marching footsteps, and
in the near distance she saw fourscore or more men tramping in military
order. "Who are they?" she asked of Jowett.
"Men that are going to see law and order kept in Lebanon," he answered.
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