She stepped to the tent door and beckoned; and out of the darkness, only
faintly lightened by the dying fires, there entered one whom Fleda had
seen not more than fifty times in her life, and never but twice since she
had ceased to be a Romany. It was her father's secret agent, Rhodo, the
Roumelian, now grizzled and gaunt, but with the same vitality which had
been his in the days when she was a little child.

Here and there in the world went Rhodo, the voice of the Ry of Rys to do
his bidding, to say his say. No minister of a Czar was ever more dreaded
or loved. His words were ever few, but his deeds had been many. Now, as
he looked at Fleda, his old eyes gleamed, and he showed a double row of
teeth, not one of which was imperfect, though he was seventy years of
age.

"Would you like to come?" he asked. "Would you like to come home to the
Ry?"

With a cry she flung herself upon him. "Rhodo! Rhodo!" she exclaimed,
and now the tears broke forth, and her body shook with sobs.

A few moments later he said to her: "It's fifteen years since you kissed
me last. I thought you were ashamed of old Rhodo."

She did not answer, but looked at him with eyes streaming, drawing back
from him. Her embrace was astonishing even to herself, for as a child
Rhodo had been a figure of awe to her, and the feeling had deepened as
the years had gone on, knowing as she did his work throughout the world
for the Ry of Rys. In his face was secrecy, knowledge, and some tragic
underthing which gave him, apart from his office, a singular loneliness