He belonged to a people
who had traditions and laws of their own; organized communities moving
here and there, but carrying with them their system, their laws and
their national feeling.

There was the difference. This Romany was the child of irresponsibility,
the being that fed upon life, that did not feed life; that left one
place in the world to escape into another; that squeezed one day dry,
threw it away, and then went seeking another day to bleed; for ever
fleeing from yesterday, and using to-day only as a camping-ground.
Suddenly, however, she came to a stop in her reflections. Her father,
Gabriel Druse, was of the same race as this man, the same unorganized,
irresponsible, useless race, with no weight of civic or social duty upon
its shoulders--where did he stand? Was he no better than such as Jethro
Fawe? Was he inferior to such as Ingolby, or even Tekewani?

She realized that in her father's face there was the look of one who had
no place in the ambitious designs of men, who was not a builder, but
a wayfarer. She had seen the look often of late, and had never read
it until now, when Jethro Fawe stared at her with the boldness of
possession, with the insolence of a soul of lust which had had its
victories.

She read his look, and while one part of her shrank from him as
from some noisome thing, another part of her--to her dismay and
anger--understood him, and did not resent him. It was the Past dragging
at her life. It was inherited predisposition, the unregulated passions
of her forebears, the mating of the fields, the generated dominance of
the body, which was not to be commanded into obscurity, but must taunt
and tempt her while her soul sickened. She put a hand on herself. She
must make this man realize once and for all that they were as far apart
as Adam and Cagliostro. "I never called to you," she said at last.
"I did not know of your existence, and, if I had, then I certainly
shouldn't have called."

"The Gorgios have taken away your mind, or you'd understand," he replied
coolly. "Your soul calls and those that understand come. It isn't that
you know who hears or who is coming--till he comes."

"A call to all creation!" she answered disdainfully. "Do you think you
can impress me by saying things like that?"

"Why not? It's true. Wherever you went in all these years the memory of
you kept calling me, my little 'rinkne rakli'--my pretty little girl,
made mine by the River Starzke over in the Roumel