THE GYPSY BLOOD
It was a curious puzzle which, through the quiet of the afternoon that
followed, Diane sought desperately to assemble from the chaos of
highly-colored segments which the morning had supplied. There were
intervals when she rejected the result, with its maddening gaps and
imperfections, with a laugh of utter derision--it was so preposterous!
There were quieter intervals when she pieced the impossible segments
all together again and stared aghast at the result. No matter how
incredulous her attitude, however, when the scattered angles slipped
into unity, riveted together by a painful concentration, the result,
with its consequent light upon the wooing of Ronador, though more and
more startling, was in the main convincing.
Days back in Arcadia Diane remembered the Baron had suavely spoken of
his kingdom, and Philip had told her much. There was a mad king
without issue upon the throne. There were two brothers of the mad
king, each of whom had a son. Theodomir, then, had been the son of the
elder, Ronador of the younger. Theodomir had fled at the death of his
father, unwilling to take up the regency under a mad king. So
Ronador's father had come to the regency of the kingdom and Ronador
himself and his little son had stood in the direct line of succession
until the ghost arose from the candlestick and mocked them all. And
she--Diane--was the child of Theodomir.
Diane was still dazedly sorting the pieces of the puzzle when the sun
set in a red glory beyond the lake, matching the flame of Philip's fire
by which he and the Baron sat in earnest discussion.
The west was faintly yellow, the forest dark, when from the tent to
which she had retired at noon, quite distraught and incoherent. Aunt
Agatha begged plaintively for a cup of tea.
"Diane," she said, when the girl herself appeared with it, "I--I can't
forget his face. I--I never shall. Twice now I've tried to get up,
but I thought of his eyes and the revolver, and my knees folded up.
It--it was just so this morning. What with the ringing in my ears--and
the dizziness--and his face so dark with anger--and digging my heels in
the ground to keep my knees from folding up under me--I--I thought I
should go quite mad, quite mad, my dear. He--he meant to kill Mr.
Poynter?"
"Yes," said Diane with a shudder. "Yes. I--think so."
"I'm sorry I told him where you were," fluttered Aunt Agatha, taking a
conscience-stricken and somewhat tearful gulp of very hot tea. "I--I
am indeed, but I couldn't in the least know that he went about killing
people, could I, Diane?"
"No," said Diane patiently. "No, of course not. Don't bother about
it. Aunt Agatha. Why not wait until your tea is a little cooler?"
"I'll have to," said Aunt Agatha with an aggrieved sniff. "For I do
believe I'm filled with steam now. Why are you so white and quiet,
Diane? Is it the revolver?"
"Aunt Agatha," exclaimed the girl impetuously, "why have you always
been so reticent about my mother?"
The effect of the girl's words was sufficient proof that the frightened
lady had absorbed but little of Philip's revelation. Tired and
nervous, hazily aware that the scene of the morning had been
portentous, and now confounding it in a panic with something that by a
deathbed pledge had lain inexorably buried in her heart for years, Aunt
Agatha screamed and dropped her teacup. It rolled away in a trail of
steam to the flap of the tent. Covering her face with her hands, Aunt
Agatha burst hysterically into a shower of tears.
Diane started.
"Aunt Agatha," she exclaimed, "what is it? For heaven's sake, don't
sob and tremble so."
"I--I might have known it!" sobbed Aunt Agatha, wringing her plump
hands in genuine distress. "I might have guessed they would tell you
that, though how in the world they found it out is beyond me. If I'd
only listened instead of worrying about my knees and the revolver, and
staring so. And you in the Everglades--where your father went to hunt
alligators. Oh, Diane, Diane, not a single night could I sleep--and
it's not to be wondered at that I was scared. And the dance you did
for Nathalie Fowler and me--and the costume that night at Sherrill's.
I was fairly sick! I knew it would come out--though how could I
foresee that the Baron and Mr. Poynter and the Prince would know? I--I
told your grandfather so years ago, but he pledged me on his
deathbed--and your father was wild and clever like Carl and singular in
his notions. I'll never forget your grandfather's face when you ran
away into the forest to sleep as a child. He was white and sick and
muttered something about atavism. It--it was the Indian blood--"
Diane caught her aunt's trembling arm in a grip that hurt cruelly.
"Aunt Agatha," she said, catching her breath sharply, "you must not
talk so wildly. Say it plainer!"
But Aunt Agatha tranquil was incoherent.
Aunt Agatha frightened and hysterical was utterly beyond control.
"And very beautiful too," she sobbed. "And Norman, poor fellow, was
quite mad about her--for all she was an Indian girl--though her father
was white and a Spaniard, I will say that for her. Not even so dark as
you are, Diane, and shy and lovely enough to turn any man's head--much
less your father's--though your grandfather stormed and threatened to
kill them both and only for Grant he would have. And when an Indian
from the Everglades told Norman that--that she really hadn't been
married before but just a--mother like Carl's mother, my dear--"
But Diane was gone, stumbling headlong from the tent. Aunt Agatha was
to remember her white agonized face for many a day.