“’Cept one,” he remarked, quietly, watching her keenly.
“It’s a lie!” she retorted. “I wasn’t afraid of him, and you know it! Afraid! No, it’s him that has cause to fear, and to fear me!” She shook herself with a catlike motion. “But I don’t want to speak of him. The time’ll come when I’ll show you, and him too—but that’s neither here nor there. You’ve come after me for money, and I’ve told you that you won’t get any. I’ve done with you and yours——”
“No gypsy can get clear of her people,” he said, as if he were stating an established fact beyond question.
She laughed defiantly.
“That’s rubbish,” she said, promptly. “All that nonsense is dead and gone. What, do you think I’d own a set of dirty tramps?”
He sprang to his feet, his face flushed for the first time.
“You’d better keep that between your teeth, my girl,” he said, threateningly.
“Then don’t you drive me to it,” she retorted in a more subdued tone. “How much do you want—five pounds?”
He sank back in his chair, and resumed the grapes with a laugh.
“I want twenty times as much.”