“See!” Angelo’s tone was tense with emotion. “The god!”
Jeanne stared for a moment. Then a look of distrust overspread her face. “No,” she cried, “it can’t be! You are deceiving me. It is made of clay! You made it.”
She put out her hand to grasp it and dash it to pieces. Finding it both hot and heavy, she dropped it quickly. Then there came over her face a look like nothing so much as a spring sunrise, a look that would repay a thousand miseries, as she whispered softly:
“It is! My own gypsy God of Fire! How perfect! Now I shall live anew!”
In a broad old spool-bed, beneath home woven covers from the hills of Italy, and with doors double locked and bolted, the two pals, Florence and Jeanne, fell asleep a short time later. They were wakened just as the shop people on the streets far below were hurrying out for their noonday luncheon.
CHAPTER XXXV
FLORENCE GETS HER MAN
In a bright colored dressing gown, her golden hair falling about her shoulders, Petite Jeanne sat buried deep among cushions in her great easy chair.
It was high noon of her great day. She had slept late. Now, as she sat sipping tea and munching toast, she thought of the past and of the future.
Behind her in the past lay disappointments, heartaches and many perils. Were they gone forever? Did only a golden future lay before? She hoped so.
And yet—she thought of the dark-faced gypsy whose one purpose in life appeared to be to come into possession of her gypsy Fire God; she thought, too, of the enemy of Maxwell Street. It was he, she felt sure, who was hounding poor old Dan Baker for money.