“Our chief—the Gipsy Count of our people—the husband they have given to me!”
“The husband they have given to you!” cried the young Englishman, flinging aside his arm, and drawing back—“the husband, Aurora!”
Aurora started back, even as he did, for she was not a woman to be spurned, child and gipsy though she was. She did not speak, but her eyes flashed, and her lips began to curl. She was a proud wild thing, that young Gitana; and the fire of her race began to kindle up beneath the love that had smothered it so long.
“Aurora, why did you not tell me of this earlier? How could I think it—you, who in my own country would yet be so mere a child—how could I dream that you were already married?”
“I did not say that,” cried the young girl, and her eyes became dazzling in the moonlight, so eager was she to make herself understood. “It is not yet—he, Chaleco, my grandmother, all the tribe say that, it must be—and I know that he is to hurry home the sweetmeats and presents from Seville.”
“The sweetmeats? What have sweetmeats to do with us?”
“Nothing, I dare say; perhaps you do not use them; but with us there is no marriage without sweetmeats, a ton or more. I heard Chaleco say once that he would dance knee deep in them when I become his—his”——
She broke off, and her face became dusky with the hot blood that rushed over it, for the Englishman, spite of his anger and of his sharp interest in the subject, burst into a fit of merry laughter.
“Why do you laugh?” she said, with trembling lips—“does it please you that they will marry me to Chaleco—that my life must end then?”
“What do you mean, Aurora? I never saw you weep, but your voice seems choked with tears. Tell me what is this trouble that threatens us? What is it makes you weep, for I see now that your eyes are full, that your cheeks are wet? Come close to me, darling, say, what is it? Not my foolish laughter, I could not help it, child, the idea of dancing one’s self into married life through an ocean of sweetmeats was too ridiculous!”