d gentleman, for to her he
seemed a grand gentleman. "Tell me, quick!" she entreated.

Peyrolles condescended to explain: "Seventeen years ago a girl of noble
birth, one year old, was stolen from her mother and given to gypsies."

Flora, listening, counted on her fingers: "Seventeen, one, eighteen--why,
just my age."

Peyrolles approved. "You are hearing the voice of Nature--excellent."

AEsop put in his word: "That mother has been looking for her child ever
since."

Peyrolles summed up the situation with a malign smile: "We believe we
have found her."

Flora began to catch the drift of the conversation, and was eager for
more knowledge. "Go on--go on! I always dreamed of being a great lady."

Peyrolles raised a chastening finger. "Patience, child, patience. The
prince, my master, honors the fair to-day in company with a most exalted
personage. I will bring him here to see you dance. If he recognizes you,
your fortune is made."

Flora questioned, cunningly: "How can he recognize a child of one?"

Peyrolles lifted to his eyes the elaborately laced kerchief he had been
carrying in his right hand, and appeared to be a prey to violent
emotions. "Your father was his dearest friend," he murmured, in a tearful
voice. "He would see his features in you."

Flora clapped her hands. "I hope he will."

AEsop, looking cynically from the girl to the man and from the man to the
girl, commented, dryly: "I think he will."

Peyrolles considered the interview had lasted long enough. He signed to
the girl to retire with the air of a grandee dismissing some vassal.
"Enough. Retire to your van till I come for you."

Flora pouted and pleaded: "Don't be long. I'm tired of being in there."

AEsop snapped at her, sharply: "Do as you are told. You are not a princess
yet."

The girl frowned, the girl's eyes flashed, but her acquaintance with AEsop
had given her the thoroughly justifiable impression that he was a man
whom it was better to obey, and she retired into the caravan and shut the
green-and-red door with a bang behind her.

AEsop turned with a questioning grin to Peyrolles. "Well?" he said.

Peyrolles looked approval. "I think she'll do. I'll go and find the
prince at once."

"I will go a little way with you," AEsop said, more perhaps because he
thought his company might exasperate the sham grand man than for any
other reason. He knew Peyrolles would think it unbecoming his dignity to
be seen in close companionship wit