Æsop answered her, roughly: "That's my business. Here is a gentleman who wants to speak with you." As he spoke he beckoned to Peyrolles, who rose from his seat and moved with what he considered to be dignity towards the pair, making great play of cane, great play of handkerchief, great play of jewelled-hilted sword flapping against neatly stockinged leg. He saluted the gypsy in what he conceived to be the grand manner. "Can you tell fortunes, pretty one?" The gypsy laughed, and showed good teeth as she did so. "Surely, on the palm or with the cards--all ways." "Can you tell your own fortune?" Peyrolles questioned, with a faint tinge of malice in the words. Flora laughed again, and answered, unhesitatingly: "To dance my way through the world, to enjoy myself as much as I can in the sunshine, to please pretty gentlemen, to have money to spend, to wear fine clothes and do nice things and enjoy myself, to laugh often and cry little. That is my fortune, I hope." Peyrolles shook his head and looked very wise. "Perhaps I can tell you a better fortune." Flora was impressed by the manner of the grand 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." Æsop 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." Æsop, 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." Æsop snapped at her, sharply: "Do as you are told. You are not a princess yet."