“Yes, and at great inconvenience to myself, I can assure you, to forbid my son associating with a common gypsy girl.”
Miss Dahlia drew herself up proudly, and never before had she so closely resembled Miss Ursula.
“Mrs. Widdemere,” she said, “kindly remember that you are in my home, and that you are speaking of my protege.”
At that moment Robert appeared and was puzzled to see Miss Dahlia standing with a protecting arm about Nan, and the proud angry tone of her voice, he had never before heard. Then he saw the other woman with a sneering smile on her vain, pretty face, and he understood all.
“Mother,” he said, “did you not receive the message that I sent you? Did I not tell you that you need not return to the States, that my health was recovered?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Widdemere replied coldly, “and now I understand why you did not return to the school where I had placed you. You, a Widdemere, neglecting your education that you might associate with one of a class far beneath you; but I forbid you, from this day, ever again speaking to this gypsy girl.”
Nan’s eyes flashed, but she replied proudly, “Mrs. Widdemere, you do not need to command. I myself shall never again speak to one of your kind,” then turning, she left the library.
A few moments later, when Robert and his mother were gone, Miss Dahlia went to the girl’s room and found her lying on her bed sobbing as though her heart would break.
“You see, Miss Dahlia,” she said, “there’s no use trying to make a lady of me. I’m merely a gypsy and I’ll only bring sorrow to you.”
The little woman sat by the couch and tenderly smoothing the dark hair, she said: “Little girl, you are all I have to love in the world. My sister is too occupied with many things to be my companion. It grieves me deeply to have you so hurt, but I have thought out a plan, dearie, by which this may all be prevented in the future. Tomorrow morning, early, you and I are going away to a little town in the East which was my childhood home.”