The old woman was waiting at his hall door. She was very poorly dressed, with a face as brown and wrinkled as a medlar, and a bright-coloured scarf twisted round her head. As he came in she rose and looked at him with keen black eyes. “You are the lame gentleman,” she said, inspecting him critically from head to foot. “I have brought you a message from Zita Reni.” He opened the study door, and held it for her to pass in; then followed her and shut the door, that Bianca might not hear. “Sit down, please. N-now, tell me who you are.” “It's no business of yours who I am. I have come to tell you that Zita Reni has gone away with my son.” “With--your--son?” “Yes, sir; if you don't know how to keep your mistress when you've got her, you can't complain if other men take her. My son has blood in his veins, not milk and water; he comes of the Romany folk.” “Ah, you are a gipsy! Zita has gone back to her own people, then?” She looked at him in amazed contempt. Apparently, these Christians had not even manhood enough to be angry when they were insulted. “What sort of stuff are you made of, that she should stay with you? Our women may lend themselves to you a bit for a girl's fancy, or if you pay them well; but the Romany blood comes back to the Romany folk.” The Gadfly's face remained as cold and steady as before. “Has she gone away with a gipsy camp, or merely to live with your son?” The woman burst out laughing. “Do you think of following her and trying to win her back? It's too late, sir; you should have thought of that before!” “No; I only want to know the truth, if you will tell it to me.” She shrugged her shoulders; it was hardly worth while to abuse a person who took it so meekly. “The truth, then, is that she met my son in the road the day you left her, and spoke to him in the Romany tongue; and when he saw she was one of our folk, in spite of her fine clothes, he fell in love with her bonny face, as OUR men fall in love, and took her to our camp. She told us all her trouble, and sat crying and sobbing, poor lassie, till our hearts were sore for her. We comforted her as best we could; and at last she took off her fine clothes and put on the things our lasses wear, and gave herself to my son, to be his woman and to have him for her man. He won't say to her: 'I don't love you,' and: 'I've other things to do.' When a woman is young, she wants a man; and what sort of man are you, that you can't even kiss a handsome girl when she puts her arms round your neck?” “You said,” he interrupted, “that you had brought me a message from her.”