"I am not yet educated enough to know how you get other people to commit
your crimes for you," she retorted.
"Who commits my crimes for me?" His voice was sharp and even anxious.
"The man who told you I was once a Gipsy--Jethro Fawe."
Her instinct had told her this was so. But had Jethro told all? She
thought not. It would need some catastrophe which threw him off his
balance to make him speak to a Gorgio of the inner things of Romany life;
and child--marriage was one of them.
He scoffed. "Once a Gipsy always a Gipsy. Race is race, and you can't put
it off and on like--your stocking."
He was going to say chemise, but race was race, and vestiges of native
French chivalry stayed the gross simile on the lips of the degenerate.
Fleda's eyes, however, took on a dark and brooding look which, more than
anything else, showed the Romany in her. With a murky flood of resentment
rising in her veins, she strove to fight back the half-savage instincts
of a bygone life. She felt as though she could willingly sentence this
man to death as her father had done Jethro Fawe that very morning.
Another thought, however, was working and fighting in her--that Marchand
was better as a friend than an enemy; and that while Ingolby's fate was
in the balance, while yet the Orange funeral had not taken place and the
strikes had not yet come, it might be that he could be won over to
Ingolby.
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