The boy leaned forward eagerly. “But she promised to tell you more when you were eighteen?”
“Yes.”
“Then there is something to tell.”
“Yes. But I am a gypsy.”
The boy smiled. “I believe you would be disappointed if you found that you were not.”
“But I am! Manna Lou said so. Manna Lou does not lie.” It was always like arguing in a circle. From whatever point they started, they swung back to that same statement which was final in the mind of the girl. Suddenly the boy asked; “Have you always lived in California?”
“Oh no, no!” Nan replied. “We fled from Rumania. That is my country. There are many gypsies in that land across the sea. Manna Lou said there are more than 200,000 gypsies.”
One word had attracted and held the attention of the lad. “Lady Red Bird, why did you say ‘fled?’ Did your band have to leave Rumania?”
She gleamed at him quickly, suspiciously. Then she replied dully, “I don’t know. I suppose so! Anselo Spico and his queen mother Mizella, they do wrong things. They steal—” she paused, and the boy put in suggestively: “Do they steal white children?”
Scornfully the girl flung back. “No, never! Horses here in this country, but over there it was more—I never knew, something that made Anselo Spico afraid. We traveled day and night.”