"Bless you, my lady—"
"Don't call me by my title. I've dropped it."
"Only for a time, my dear. I have read your fortune in the stars, my Gorgio one, and higher you will be with money and rank than ever you have been in past days. But not with the child's approval."
"The child. What child?"
"Chaldea, no less. She's raging mad, as the golden rye has made you his romi, my sweet one, and she has set many besides Kara to overlook you."
"So Mr. Lambert and I thought. And Chaldea's reason?"
"She would make trouble," replied Mother Cockleshell mysteriously. "But Kara does not wish her to love the golden rye—as she still does—since he would have the child to himself." She turned and spoke rapidly in Romany to the small man in the faded green coat.
Kara listened with twinkling eyes, and pulling at his heavy beard with one hand, while he held the neck of his violin with the other. When Mother Cockleshell ceased he poured out a flood of the kalo jib with much gesticulation, and in a voice which boomed like a gong. Of course, Mrs. Lambert did not understand a word of his speech, and looked inquiringly at Gentilla.
"Kara says," translated the woman hurriedly, "that he is your friend, since he is glad you are the golden rye's romi. Ever since you left Lundra the child has set him and others to spy on you. She makes mischief, does the child in her witchly way."
"Ask him," said Agnes, indicating the dwarf, "if he knows who murdered my late husband?"