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 of figure and manner. He was so closely knit in form; there was such concentration in face, bearing and gesture, that the isolation of his position was greatly deepened.
“No, you never kissed me after you were old enough to like or dislike,” he said with mournful and ironical reflection.
There crept into his face a kind of yearning such as one might feel who beheld afar off a promised land, and yet was denied its joys. Rhodo was wifeless, childless, and had been so for forty years. He had had no intimates among the Romany people. His life he lived alone. That the daughter of the Ry of Rys should kiss him was a thing of which he would dream when deeds were done and over and the shadows threatened.
“I will kiss you again in another fifteen years,” she said half-smiling through her tears. “But tell me—tell me what has happened.”
“Jethro Fawe has gone,” he answered with a sweeping outward gesture.
“Where has he gone?” she asked, apprehension seizing her.
“A journey into the night,” responded the old man with scorn and wrath in his tone, and his lips were set.
“Is he going far?” she asked.
“The road you might think long would be short to him,” he answered.
Her hands became cold; her heart seemed to stop beating.