Ingolby took out his watch, and looked at it. “I haven’t found it easy getting all that belongs to me.”
“You have found it easier getting what belongs to some one else,” was the snarling response.
Ingolby’s jaw hardened. What did the fellow mean? Did he refer to money, or—was it Fleda Druse? “See here,” he said, “there’s no need to say things like that. I never took anything that didn’t belong to me, that I didn’t win, or earn or pay for—market price or ‘founder’s shares’”—he smiled grimly. “You’ve given me the best treat I’ve had in many a day. I’d walk fifty miles to hear you play my Sarasate—or even old Berry’s cotton-field fiddle. I’m as grateful as I can be, and I’d like to pay you for it; but as you’re not a professional, and it’s one gentleman to another as it were, I can only thank you—or maybe help you to get what’s your own, if you’re really trying to get it out here. Meanwhile, have a cigar and a drink.”
He was still between the Romany and the wall, and by a movement forward sought to turn Jethro to the spirit-table. Probably this manoeuvring was all nonsense, that he was wholly misreading the man; but he had always trusted his instincts, and he would not let his reason rule him entirely in such a situation. He could also ring the bell for Jim, or call to him, for while he was in the house Jim was sure to be near by; but he felt he must deal with the business alone.
The Romany did not move towards the spirit-table, and Ingolby became increasingly vigilant.
“No, I can’t pay you anything, that’s clear,” he said; “but to get your own—I’ve got some influence out here—what can I do? A stranger is up against all kinds of things if he isn’t a native, and you’re not. Your home and country’s a good way from here, eh?”
Suddenly the Romany faced him. “Yes. I come from places far from here. Where is the Romany’s home? It is everywhere in the world, but it is everywhere inside his tent. Because his country is everywhere and nowhere, his home is more to him than it is to any other. He is alone with his wife, and with his own people. Yes, and by long and by last, he will make the man pay who spoils his home. It is all he has. Good or bad, it is all he has. It is his own.”
Ingolby had a strange, disturbing premonition that he was about to hear what would startle him, but he persisted. “You said you had come here to get your own—is your home here?”
For a moment the Romany did not answer. He had worked himself into a great passion. He had hypnotized himself, he had acted for a while as though he was one of life’s realities; but suddenly there passed through his veins the chilling sense of the unreal, that he was only acting a part, as he had ever done in his life, and that the man before him could, with a wave of the hand, raise the curtain on all his disguises and pretences. It was only for an instant, however, for there swept through him the feeling that Fleda had roused in him—the first real passion, the first true love—if what such as he felt can be love—that he had ever known; and he saw her again as she was in the but in the wood defying him, ready to defend herself against him. All his erotic anger and melodramatic fervour were alive in him once more.
He was again a man with a wrong, a lover dispossessed. On the instant his veins filled with passionate blood. The Roscian strain in him had its own tragic force and reality.