you will resent me, and then you will begin to love me. You will fight
me, but I will conquer. I know you--I know you--all you women. But no,
it will not be I that will conquer. It's my love that will do it. It's
a den of tigers. When it breaks loose it will have its way. Here it is.
Can't you see it in my face? Can't you hear it in my voice? Don't you
hear my heart beating? Every throb says, 'Fleda--Fleda--Fleda, come to
me.' I have loved you since you were three. I want you now. We can be
happy. Every night we will make a new home. The world will be ours; the
best that is in it will come to us. We will tap the trees of happiness
--they're hid from the Gorgio world. You and I will know where to find
them. Every land shall be ours; every gift of paradise within our reach
--riches, power, children. Come back to your own people; be a true
daughter of the Ry of Rys; live with your Romany chal. You will never be
at home anywhere else. It's in your bones; it's in your blood; it's
deeper than all. Here, now, come to me--my wife."

He flung the flap of the tent door across the opening, shutting out the
camp-fires and the people. "Here--now--come. Be mine while they sing."

For one swift moment the great passion and eloquence of the man lifted
her off her feet; for one instant the Romany in her triumphed, and a
thrill of passion passed through her, storming her senses, like a mist
shutting out all the rest of the world. This Romany was right; there was
in her the wild thing--the everlasting strain of race and years breaking
down all the defences which civilized life had built up within her. Just
for one instant so--and then there flashed before her a face with two
blind eyes.

Like a stream of ether playing upon warm flesh, making it icy cold, so
something of the ineradicable good in her swept like a frozen spray upon