The girl looked at him with a little frown, and spoke with a little note of fretfulness in her voice: "So you have come at last. I have been so tired of waiting for you, mewed up in there."
Æsop answered her, roughly: "That’s my business. Here is a gentleman who wants to speak with you."
As he spoke he beckoned to Peyrolles, who rose from his seat and moved with what he considered to be dignity towards the pair, making great play of cane, great play of handkerchief, great play of jewelled-hilted sword flapping against neatly stockinged leg.
He saluted the gypsy in what he conceived to be the grand manner. "Can you tell fortunes, pretty one?"
The gypsy laughed, and showed good teeth as she did so. "Surely, on the palm or with the cards—all ways."
"Can you tell your own fortune?" Peyrolles questioned, with a faint tinge of malice in the words.
Flora laughed again, and answered, unhesitatingly: "To dance my way through the world, to enjoy myself as much as I can in the sunshine, to please pretty gentlemen, to have money to spend, to wear fine clothes and do nice things and enjoy myself, to laugh often and cry little. That is my fortune, I hope."
Peyrolles shook his head and looked very wise. "Perhaps I can tell you a better fortune."
Flora was impressed by the manner of the grand gentleman, for to her he seemed a grand gentleman. "Tell me, quick!" she entreated.
Peyrolles condescended to explain: "Seventeen years ago a girl of noble birth, one year old, was stolen from her mother and given to gypsies."