“We must have her.”
“We will.”
That was all for the time. But now, after several months, Petite Jeanne, as she sat in this cabin by the side of a great lake, reveled in the dream of flitting through her gypsy dance with two thousand Americans swaying in unconscious rhythm to her every movement, and that not one night, but many nights on end.
“Nights and nights and nights,” she now murmured, as she clasped her hands before her.
But suddenly, as if a cloud had fallen over all, she became conscious once more of dim light and night. Not alone that. There came to her now a sense of approaching danger.
The gypsies are curious people. Who knows what uncanny power they possess? A gypsy, a very old woman, had in some way imparted to Petite Jeanne some of this power. It gave her the ability to divine the presence of those she knew, even when they were some distance away. Was it mental telepathy? Did these others think, and were their thoughts carried by who knows what power, as the radio message is carried over the ether, to this girl’s sensitive brain? Who knows? Enough that a message now came; that it caused her to shudder and glance hurriedly about her.
“Gypsies,” she said aloud. “There must be gypsies near, French gypsies, my enemies.”
Yet, even as she said this, the thing seemed absurd. She had inquired of the native population concerning gypsies. They did not so much as know that such people existed. This section of the country, where the greater part of all travel is done on water, and where the people are poor, has seldom been visited by a gypsy caravan.
“And yet,” she said with conviction, “they are near!”