The young man started, and a flush swept over his forehead. At first he found it difficult to speak. How very, very hard it is for a man, whose impulses are all honorable, to express a wrong wish in words! But after a brief struggle he became cold and grave. She must understand his full meaning. He would not deceive—would not even persuade her. If she went with him it must be with a full knowledge of her position, of the impossibility that any marriage could ever exist between them.
Some men would have glossed this over, covered it with transcendental poetry, smothered the sin with rose-leaves. He did nothing of the kind. Knowing the wrong, he would neither conceal this conviction from himself nor her. Therefore it was that, with a cold, almost severe conciseness, he explained himself. True, there was little merit in this; it was rather a peace offering to his own pride than a homage to truth. From all that he had heard of the gipsies, he did not believe that anything he was saying could make much difference to the Gitanilla. But it was due to himself, and so he spoke plainly.
She understood him at last. It was with great difficulty, for the idea entered her mind as a proposition of murder would have done. It dawned upon her by degrees, arousing and kindling the wild Gitana blood in her veins with every new thought. She heard him through, not without attempting to speak, but the effort seemed strangling her. He saw that she writhed faintly, once or twice, but heeded it not and went on.
At length she sprang up, her cheeks in a dusky blaze, her eyes full of lightning. Her little tawny hand was clenched like a vice and stamping her foot upon the pavement, she struggled for voice. It broke out at last, loud and ringing, like the cry of an angry bird.
“I am a Gitana—a Gitana. Did you take me for a Busne?”
Before he could answer, or had half recovered from the surprise into which this storm of passion threw him, she had gone. He saw her dart into the cloister, and caught one glimpse of a shadow that seemed to leap across the court, but even that had disappeared before he could reach the broad moonlight.
CHAPTER VII.
WAITING FOR VENGEANCE.
Clare stood in the Court of Lions, absolutely bewildered by the suddenness of what had happened. As he listened the sound of a footstep, heavier than the one he sought—but of this he did not think at the time—reached him from the lower end of the court. He moved hurriedly in that direction, and just as he reached the azulejo pillars, that still retain their first beauty in that portion of the ruin, a man came toward him, but keeping behind the columns with a sort of cowardly ferocity, like one who was seeking an opportunity to strike in the dark.
The Englishman paused. There was something in the appearance of this man, closely as he kept to the shadows, which reminded him of an unpleasant adventure that he had met on his route to Granada. The idea was enough. He darted forward and stood face to face with the leader of a prowling band of gipsies who had robbed him, not two months before, on his way from Seville.
The man seemed to recognize him also. At first he slunk away as if with a hope of concealment, but a slight jingle of the numerous silver tags on his jacket, and a stealthy movement of the right arm downward, while his eyes followed the Englishman like a basilisk, were significant of some more vicious intent.