Red Money

Thus it came about that when the moon rolled through a starry sky like a golden wheel, Lambert, sighing at his studio window, saw a slim and graceful figure glide into the clear space of lawn beyond the monoliths. So searching was the thin moonlight that he recognized Chaldea at once, as she wandered here and there restless as a butterfly, and apparently as aimless. But, had he known it, she had her eyes on the cottage all the time, and had he failed to come forth she would have come to inquire if he was at home. But the artist did come forth, thinking to wile away an hour with the fascinating gypsy girl. Always dressing for dinner, even in solitude, for the habit of years was too strong to lay aside – and, moreover, he was fastidious in his dress to preserve his self-respect – he appeared at the door looking slender and well-set up in his dark clothes. Although it was August the night was warm, and Lambert did not trouble to put on cap or overcoat. With his hands in his pockets and a cigar between his lips he strolled over to the girl, where she swayed and swung in the fairy light.

"Hullo, Chaldea," he said leisurely, and leaning against one of the moss-grown monoliths, "what are you doing here?"

"The rye," exclaimed Chaldea, with a well-feigned start of surprise. "Avali the rye. Sarishan, my Gorgious gentleman, you, too, are a nightbird. Have you come out mousing like an owl? Ha! ha! and you hear the nightingale singing, speaking in the Gentile manner," and clapping her hands she lifted up a full rich voice.

"Dyal o pani repedishis,M'ro pirano hegedishis."

"What does that mean, Chaldea?"

"It is an Hungarian song, and means that while the stream flows I hear the violin of my love. Kara taught me the ditty."

"And Kara is your love?"

"No. Oh, no; oh, no," sang Chaldea, whirling round and round in quite a magical manner. "No rom have I, but a mateless bird I wander. Still I hear the violin of my true love, my new love, who knows my droms, and that means my habits, rye," she ended, suddenly speaking in a natural manner.

"I don't hear the violin, however," said Lambert lazily, and thinking what a picturesque girl she was in her many-hued rag-tag garments, and with the golden coins glittering in her black hair.

"You will, rye, you will," she said confidentially. "Come, my darling gentleman, cross my hand with silver and I dance. I swear it. No hokkeny baro will you behold when the wind pipes for me."

"Hokkeny baro."

"A great swindle, my wise sir. Hai, what a pity you cannot patter the gentle Romany tongue. Kek! Kek! What does it matter, when you speak Gentile gibberish like an angel. Sit, rye, and I dance for you."

"Quite like Carmen and Don José in the opera," murmured Lambert, sliding down to the foot of the rude stone.

"What of her and of him? Were they Romans?"

"Carmen was and José wasn't. She danced herself into his heart."

Chaldea's eyes flashed, and she made a hasty sign to attract the happy omen of his saying to herself. "Kushto bak," cried Chaldea, using the gypsy for good luck. "And to me, to me," she clapped her hand. "Hark, my golden rye, and watch me dance your love into my life."

The wind was rising and sighed through the wood, shaking myriad leaves from the trees. Blending with its faint cry came a long, sweet, sustained note of music. Lambert started, so weird and unexpected was the sound. "Kara, isn't it?" he asked, looking inquiringly at Chaldea.

"He talks to the night – he speaks with the wind. Oh-ah-ah-ah. Ah-oha-oha-oha-ho," sang the gypsy, clapping her hands softly, then, as the music came breathing from the hidden violin in dreamy sensuous tones, she raised her bare arms and began to dance. The place, the dancer, the hour, the mysterious music, and the pale enchantments of the moon – it was like fairyland.

Lambert soon let his cigar go out, so absorbed did he become in watching the dance. It was a wonderful performance, sensuous and weirdly unusual. He had never seen a dance exactly like it before. The violin notes sounded like actual words, and the dancer answered them with responsive movements of her limbs, so that without speech the onlooker saw a love-drama enacted before his eyes. Chaldea – so he interpreted the dance – swayed gracefully from the hips, without moving her feet, in the style of a Nautch girl. She was waiting for some one, since to right and left she swung with a delicate hand curved behind her ear. Suddenly she started, as if she heard an approaching footstep, and in maidenly confusion glided to a distance, where she stood with her hands across her bosom, the very picture of a surprised nymph. Mentally, the dance translated itself to Lambert somewhat after this fashion:

"She waits for her lover. That little run forward means that she sees him coming. She falls at his feet; she kisses them. He raises her – I suppose that panther spring from the ground means that he raises her. She caresses him with much fondling and many kisses. By Jove, what pantomime! Now she dances to please him. She stops and trembles; the dance does not satisfy. She tries another. No! No! Not that! It is too dreamy – the lover is in a martial mood. This time she strikes his fancy. Kara is playing a wild Hungarian polonaise. Wonderful! Wonderful!"

He might well say so, and he struggled to his feet, leaning against the pillar of stone to see the dancer better. From the wood came the fierce and stirring Slav music, and Chaldea's whole expressive body answered to every note as a needle does to a magnet. She leaped, clicking her heels together, advanced, as if on the foe, with a bound – was flung back – so it seemed – and again sprang to the assault. She stiffened to stubborn resistance – she unexpectedly became pliant and yielding and graceful, and voluptuous, while the music took on the dreamy tones of love. And Lambert translated the change after his own idea:

"The music does not please the dancer – it is too martial. She fears lest her lover should rush off to the wars, and seeks to detain him by the dance of Venus. But he will go. He rises; he speeds away; she breaks off the dance. Ah! what a cry of despair the violin gave just now. She follows, stretching out her empty arms. But it is useless – he is gone. Bah! She snaps her fingers. What does she care! She will dance to please herself, and to show that her heart is yet whole. What a Bacchanalian strain. She whirls and springs and swoops and leaps. She comes near to me, whirling like a Dervish; she recedes, and then comes spinning round again, like a mad creature. And then – oh, hang it! What do you mean? Chaldea, what are you doing?"

Lambert had some excuse for suddenly bursting into speech, when he cried out vigorously: "Oh, hang it!" for Chaldea whirled right up to him and had laid her arms round his neck, and her lips against his cheek. The music stopped abruptly, with a kind of angry snarl, as if Kara, furious at the sight, had put his wrath into the last broken note. Then all was silent, and the artist found himself imprisoned in the arms of the woman, which were locked round his neck. With an oath he unlinked her fingers and flung her away from him fiercely.

"You fool – you utter fool!" cried Lambert, striving to calm down the beating of his heart, and restrain the racing of his blood, for he was a man, and the sudden action of the gypsy had nearly swept away his self-restraint.

"I love you – I love you," panted Chaldea from the grass, where he had thrown her. "Oh, my beautiful one, I love you."

"You are crazy," retorted Lambert, quivering with many emotions to which he could scarcely put a name, so shaken was he by the experience. "What the devil do you mean by behaving in this way?" and his voice rose in such a gust of anger that Kara, hidden in the wood, rejoiced. He could not understand what was being said, but the tone of the voice was enough for him. He did not know whether Chaldea was cheating the Gentile, or cheating him; but he gathered that in either case, she had been repulsed. The girl knew that also, when her ardent eyes swept across Lambert's white face, and she burst into tears of anger and disappointment.

"Oh, rye, I give you all, and you take nothing," she wailed tearfully.

"I don't want anything. You silly girl, do you think that for one moment I was ever in love with you?"

"I – I – want you – to – to – love me," sobbed Chaldea, grovelling on the grass.

"Then you want an impossibility," and to Lambert's mind's eye there appeared the vision of a calm and beautiful face, far removed in its pure looks from the flushed beauty of the fiery gypsy. To gain control of himself, he took out a cigar and lighted it. But his hand trembled. "You little fool," he muttered, and sauntered, purposely, slowly toward the cottage.

Chaldea gathered herself up with the spring of a tigress, and in a moment was at his elbow with her face black with rage. Her tears had vanished and with them went her softer mood. "You – you reject me," she said in grating tones, and shaking from head to foot as she gripped his shoulder.

"Take away your hand," commanded Lambert sharply, and when she recoiled a pace he faced her squarely. "You must have been drinking," he declared, hoping to insult her into common sense. "What would Kara say if – "

"I don't want Kara. I want you," interrupted Chaldea, her breast heaving, and looking sullenly wrathful.

"Then you can't have me. Why should you think of me in this silly way? We were very good friends, and now you have spoiled everything. I can never have you to sit for me again."

Chaldea's lip drooped. "Never again? Never again?"

"No. It is impossible, since you have chosen to act in this way. Come, you silly girl, be sensible, and – "

"Silly girl! Oh, yes, silly girl," flashed out Chaldea. "And what is she?"

"She?" Lambert stiffened himself. "What do you mean?"

"I mean the Gentile lady. I was under the window this afternoon. I heard all you were talking about."

The man stepped back a pace and clenched his hands. "You – listened?" he asked slowly, and with a very white face.

Chaldea nodded with a triumphant smile.

"Avali! And why not? You have no right to love another man's romi."

"I do not love her," began Lambert, and then checked himself, as he really could not discuss so delicate a matter with this wildcat. "Why did you listen, may I ask?" he demanded, passing his tongue over his dry lips.

"Because I love you, and love is jealous."

Lambert restrained himself by a violent effort from shaking her. "You are talking nonsense," he declared with enforced calmness. "And it is ridiculous for you to love a man who does not care in the least for you."

"It will come – I can wait," insisted Chaldea sullenly.

"If you wait until Doomsday it will make no difference. I don't love you, and I have never given you any reason to think so."

"Chee-chee!" bantered the girl. "Is that because I am not a raclan?"

"A raclan?"

"A married Gentile lady, that is. You love her?"

"I – I – see, here, Chaldea, I am not going to talk over such things with you, as my affairs are not your business."

"They are the business of the Gorgious female's rom."

"Rom? Her husband, you mean. What do you know of – "

"I know that the Gentle Pine is really one of us," interrupted the girl quickly. "Ishmael Hearne is his name."

"Sir Hubert Pine?"

"Ishmael Hearne," insisted Chaldea pertly. "He comes to the fire of the Gentle Romany when he wearies of your Gorgious flesh-pots."

"Pine a gypsy," muttered Lambert, and the memory of that dark, lean, Eastern face impressed him with the belief that what the girl said was true.

"Avali. A true son of the road. He is here."

"Here?" Lambert started violently. "What do you mean?"

"I say what I mean, rye. He you call Pine is in our camp enjoying the old life. Shall I bring him to you?" she inquired demurely.

In a flash Lambert saw his danger, and the danger of Agnes, seeing that the millionaire was as jealous as Othello. However, it seemed to him that honesty was the best policy at the moment. "I shall see him myself later," he declared after a pause. "If you listened, you must know that there is no reason why I should not see him. His wife is my cousin, and paid me a friendly visit – that is all."

"Yes; that is all," mocked the girl contemptuously. "But if I tell him – "

"Tell him what?"

"That you love his romi!"

"He knows that," said Lambert quietly. "And knows also that I am an honorable man. See here, Chaldea, you are dangerous, because this silly love of yours has warped your common sense. You can make a lot of mischief if you so choose, I know well."

"And I shall choose, my golden rye, if you love me not."

"Then set about it at once," said Lambert boldly. "It is best to be honest, my girl. I have done nothing wrong, and I don't intend to do anything wrong, so you can say what you like. To-night I shall go to London, and if Pine, or Hearne, or whatever you call him, wants me, he knows my town address."

"You defy me?" panted Chaldea, her breast rising and falling quickly.

"Yes; truth must prevail in the end. I make no bargain with a spy," and he gave her a contemptuous look, as he strode into the cottage and shut the door with an emphatic bang.

"Hai!" muttered the gypsy between her teeth. "Hatch till the dood wells apré," which means: "Wait until the moon rises!" an ominous saying for Lambert.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SECRETARY

"Was ever a man in so uncomfortable a position?"

Lambert asked himself this question as soon as he was safe in his studio, and he found it a difficult one to answer. It was true that what he had said to Agnes, and what Agnes had said to him, was perfectly honest and extremely honorable, considering the state of their feelings. But the conversation had been overheard by an unscrupulous woman, whose jealousy would probably twist innocence into guilt. It was certain that she would go to Pine and give him a garbled version of what had taken place, in which case the danger was great, both to himself and to Agnes. Lambert had spoken bravely enough to the marplot, knowing that he had done no wrong, but now he was by no means sure that he had acted rightly. Perhaps it would have been better to temporize but that would have meant a surrender young to Chaldea's unmaidenly wooing. And, as the man had not a spark of love for her in a heart given entirely to another woman, he was unwilling even to feign playing the part of a lover.

On reflection he still held to his resolution to go to London, thinking that it would be best for him to be out of reach of Agnes while Pine was in the neighborhood. The news that the millionaire was a gypsy had astonished him at first; but now that he considered the man's dark coloring and un-English looks, he quite believed that what Chaldea said was true. And he could understand also that Pine – or Hearne, since that was his true name – would occasionally wish to breathe the free air of heath and road since he had been cradled under a tent, and must at times feel strongly the longing for the old lawless life. But why should he revert to his beginnings so near to his brother-in-law's house, where his wife was staying? "Unless he came to keep an eye on her," murmured Lambert, and unconsciously hit on the very reason of the pseudo-gypsy's presence at Garvington.

After all, it would be best to go to London for a time to wait until he saw what Chaldea would do. Then he could meet Pine and have an understanding with him. The very fact that Pine was a Romany, and was on his native heath, appealed to Lambert as a reason why he should not seek out the man immediately, as he almost felt inclined to do, in order to forestall Chaldea's story. As Hearne, the millionaire's wild instincts would be uppermost, and he would probably not listen to reason, whereas if the meeting took place in London, Pine would resume to a certain extent his veneer of civilization and would be more willing to do justice.

"Yes," decided Lambert, rising and stretching himself. "I shall go to London and wait to turn over matters in my own mind. I shall say nothing to Agnes until I know what is best to be done about Chaldea. Meanwhile, I shall see the girl and get her to hold her tongue for a time – Damn!" He frowned. "It's making the best of a dangerous situation, but I don't see my way to a proper adjustment yet. The most necessary thing is to gain time."

With this in his mind he hastily packed a gladstone bag, changed into tweeds, and told Mrs. Tribb that he was going to London for a day or so. "I shall get a trap at the inn and drive to the station," he said, as he halted at the door. "You will receive a wire saying when I shall return," and leaving the dry little woman, open-mouthed at this sudden departure, the young man hastened away.

Instead of going straight to the village, he took a roundabout road to the camp on the verge of Abbot's Wood. Here he found the vagrants in a state of great excitement, as Lord Garvington had that afternoon sent notice by a gamekeeper that they were to leave his land the next day. Taken up with his own private troubles, Lambert did not pay much attention to those of the tribe, and looked about for Chaldea. He finally saw her sitting by one of the fires, in a dejected attitude, and touched her on the shoulder. At once, like a disturbed animal, she leaped to her feet.

"The rye!" said Chaldea, with a gasp, and a hopeful look on her face.

"Give me three days before you say anything to Pine," said Lambert in a low voice, and a furtive look round. "You understand."

"No," said the girl boldly. "Unless you mean – "

"Never mind what I mean," interrupted the man hastily, for he was determined not to commit himself. "Will you hold your tongue for three days?"

Chaldea looked hard at his face, upon which the red firelight played brightly, but could not read what was in his mind. However, she thought that the request showed a sign of yielding, and was a mute confession that he knew he was in her power. "I give you three days," she murmured. "But – "

"I have your promise then, so good-bye," interrupted Lambert abruptly, and walked away hastily in the direction of Garvington village. His mind was more or less of a chaos, but at all events he had gained time to reduce the chaos to some sort of order. Still as yet he could not see the outcome of the situation and departed swiftly in order to think it over.

Chaldea made a step or two, as if to follow, but a reflection that she could do no good by talking at the moment, and a certainty that she held him in the hollow of her hand, made her pause. With a hitch of her shapely shoulders she resumed her seat by the fire, brooding sombrely on the way in which this Gentile had rejected her love. Bending her black brows and showing her white teeth like an irritated dog, she inwardly cursed herself for cherishing so foolish a love. Nevertheless, she did not try to overcome it, but resolved to force the Gorgio to her feet. Then she could spurn him if she had a mind to, as he had spurned her. But she well knew, and confessed it to herself with a sigh, that there would be no spurning on her part, since her wayward love was stronger than her pride.

"Did the Gentile bring the gold, my sister?" asked a harsh voice, and she raised her head to see Kara's hairy face bent to her ear.

"No, brother. He goes to Lundra to get the gold. Did I not play my fish in fine style?"

"I took it for truth, sister!" said Kara, looking at her searchingly.

Chaldea nodded wearily. "I am a great witch, as you can see."

"You will be my romi when the gold chinks in our pockets?"

"Yes, for certain, brother. It's a true fortune!"

"Before our camp is changed, sister?" persisted the man greedily.

"No; for to-morrow we may take the road, since the great lord orders us off his land. And yet – " Chaldea stood up, suddenly recollecting what had been said by Pine's wife. "Why should we leave?"

"The rabbit can't kick dust in the fox's face, sister," said Kara, meaning that Garvington was too strong for the gypsies.

"There are rabbits and rabbits," said Chaldea sententiously. "Where is Hearne, brother?"

"In Gentilla's tent with a Gorgious gentleman. He's trading a horse with the swell rye, and wants no meddling with his time, sister."

"I meddle now," snapped Chaldea, and walked away in her usual free and graceful manner. Kara shrugged his shoulders and then took refuge in talking to his violin, to which he related his doubts of the girl's truth. And he smiled grimly, as he thought of the recovered knife which was again snugly hidden under his weather-worn green coat.

Chaldea, who did not stand on ceremony, walked to the end of the camp without paying any attention to the excited gypsies, and flung back the flap of the old woman's tent. Mother Cockleshell was not within, as she had given the use of her abode to Pine and his visitor. This latter was a small, neat man with a smooth, boyish face and reddish hair. He had the innocent expression of a fox-terrier, and rather resembled one. He was neatly and inoffensively dressed in blue serge, and although he did not look exactly like a gentleman, he would have passed for one in a crowd. When Chaldea made her abrupt entrance he was talking volubly to Pine, and the millionaire addressed him – when he answered – as Silver. Chaldea, remembering the conversation she had overheard between Pine and Miss Greeby, speedily reached the conclusion that the neat little man was the secretary referred to therein. Probably he had come to report about Lady Agnes.

"What is it, sister?" demanded Pine sharply, and making a sign that Silver should stop talking.

"Does the camp travel to-morrow, brother?"

"Perhaps, yes," retorted Pine abruptly.

"And perhaps no, brother, if you use your power."

Silver raised his faint eyebrows and looked questioningly at his employer, as if to ask what this cryptic sentence meant. Pine knew only too well, since Chaldea had impressed him thoroughly with the fact that she had overheard many of his secrets. Therefore he did not waste time in argument, but nodded quietly. "Sleep in peace, sister. The camp shall stay, if you wish it."

"I do wish it!" She glanced at Silver and changed her speech to Romany. "The ring will be here," tapping her finger, "in one week if we stay."

"So be it, sister," replied Pine, also in Romany, and with a gleam of satisfaction in his dark eyes. "Go now and return when this Gentile goes. What of the golden Gorgious one?"

"He seeks Lundra this night."

"For the ring, sister?"

Chaldea looked hard at him. "For the ring" she said abruptly, then dropping the tent-flap which she had held all the time, she disappeared.

Silver looked at his master inquiringly, and noted that he seemed very satisfied. "What did she say in Romany?" he asked eagerly.

"True news and new news, and news you never heard of," mocked Pine. "Don't ask questions, Mark."

"But since I am your secretary – "

"You are secretary to Hubert Pine, not to Ishmael Hearne," broke in the other man. "And when Romany is spoken it concerns the last."

Silver's pale-colored, red-rimmed eyes twinkled in an evil manner. "You are afraid that I may learn too much about you."

"You know all that is to be known," retorted Pine sharply. "But I won't have you meddle with my Romany business. A Gentile such as you are cannot understand the chals."

"Try me."

"There is no need. You are my secretary – my trusted secretary – that is quite enough. I pay you well to keep my secrets."

"I don't keep them because you pay me," said Silver quickly, and with a look of meekness belied by the sinister gleam in his pale bluish eyes. "It is devotion that makes me honest. I owe everything to you."

"I think you do," observed Pine quietly. "When I found you in Whitechapel you were only a pauper toymaker."

"An inventor of toys, remember. You made your fortune out of my inventions."

"The three clever toys you invented laid the foundations of my wealth," corrected the millionaire calmly. "But I made my money in the South African share business. And if I hadn't taken up your toys, you would have been now struggling in Whitechapel, since there was no one but me to exploit your brains in the toy-making way. I have rescued you from starvation; I have made you my secretary, and pay you a good salary, and I have introduced you to good society. Yes, you do indeed owe everything to me. Yet – " he paused.