“As you please,” said he, with a strange smile. “You have inherited the fiery, passionate spirit of your race, I see. Your father is, you say, drowned?”
“Yes—yes! To what end are all these questions?”
“Patience, Mr. Germaine; I will come to that presently. Did your grandmother ever speak to you of your mother?”
“Very little,” said Ray, in a softer tone. “She told me she never saw her, but that she was a lady of rank. That, however, I am inclined to doubt.”
“And why?”
“Because my father was a gipsy. No lady of rank, knowing it, would have anything to do with one of his class. Proud England’s proud daughters would not mate with despised gipsies.”
A streak of fiery red darted for a moment across the dark face of Captain Reginald, and then passed away, leaving it whiter than before.
“Love levels all distinctions, young sir,” he said, haughtily. “If she loved him would not that be sufficient to break through all the cobweb barriers of rank? Have not all social ties been proven, thousands of times, to be more flimsy than paper walls before the irresistible whirlwind of human love and passion?”
Ray thought of Pet, and his dark cheek flushed slightly. What a convenient belief this would be, dared he adopt it. He loved her, and thrilling through his heart came the conviction that she loved him. Would she, too, break down these “paper walls” for his sake? Would she give up all the world for him, as thousands had done before, according to this strange man’s story?
“Your mother was a lady of rank—is a lady of rank, for she still lives!” were the next words, spoken rapidly and excitedly, that aroused him from his dangerous reverie.