“Yes, it is beautiful.” To her surprise, she was answered by a blonde-haired girl who had just stepped round the plane.
“Is—is it yours?” she asked in surprise.
“But yes.” The strange girl spoke with a decided French accent. “I am the one they call Petite Jeanne. You have heard of me. No? Ah well, it does not matter.” She laughed a silvery laugh. She was, Rosemary noted, a slender girl with beautifully regular features and dancing eyes. “Dancing feet too,” she whispered to herself. “They are never still.”
Unconsciously she had been following the girl round the plane. There, on the other side, she met with a surprise. Seated on bright colored bundles, close to a small fire over which a small teakettle steamed, was a large, stolid-looking gypsy woman and a small gypsy girl.
“So the gypsies are taking to the air!” she exclaimed. “And you—” she turned to the blonde girl, “are you a gypsy too?”
“As you like.” A cloud appeared to pass over the girl’s face. It was followed by a smile. “Anyway,” she said, “I am flying now. And you, since you are flying always, you may see me again in some strange new place.
“Indeed,” she added after a brief silence, “Madame Bihari here, who is my foster mother, was telling my fortune with cards.”
“Your fortune?”
“But yes.” The girl laughed merrily. “What would a gypsy be if she did not tell fortunes?
“And in my fortune,” she went on, “I was to meet a stewardess of the air. This meeting was to lead me into strange and mysterious adventures. And now here you are. Is it not strange? It is very wonderful, truly it is, this telling fortunes with gypsy cards. You must try it.”