Chatting pleasantly they returned to camp.
Imperceptibly their talk of the fortunes of the road took on a more intimate tinge of reminiscence and presently, with searching eyes fixed upon the vivid, lovely face of the wind-brown gypsy beneath the cedar, Ronador asked the girl to marry him.
Very gently Diane released her hands from his grasp, her cheeks scarlet.
"Indeed, indeed," she faltered, "I could not with fairness answer you now, for I do not in the least know what I think. You will not misunderstand me, I am sure, if I tell you that not once in the long, pleasant days we journeyed the same roads, did I ever dream of the nature of your pleasant friendship." Her frank, dark eyes, alive with a beautiful sincerity, met his honestly. "There was always tradition--" she reminded.
Ronador's reply was sincere and gallant. Diane was lovelier than any princess, he said, and in Houdania, tradition had been replaced years back by a law which granted freedom.
"Though to be sure," he added bitterly, "each generation seeks to break it. Tregar tried, urging me persistently for diplomatic reasons to take a wife of his choosing. And when I--I fled to America to escape his infernal scheming and spying--he followed. Even here in America I have been haunted by spies--"
His glance wavered.
"And then," he went on earnestly, "I saw you and I knew that Princess Phaedra was forever impossible. There was a night of terrible wind and storm when I planned to beg shelter in your camp and make your acquaintance. . . . You are annoyed?"
"No," said Diane honestly. "Why fuss now?"
"Tregar must have suspected. I met his--his spy in the forest and we quarreled wildly. He tried to kill me but the bullet went wild."
Again his glance wavered but the lying words came smoothly. "My servant, Themar, leaped and stabbed him in the shoulder--"
"No! No!" cried Diane. "Not that--not that!" Her eyes, dark with horror in the colorless oval of her face, met Ronador's with mute appeal. "It--it can not be," she added quietly. "The man was Philip Poynter."
Ronador caught her hands again with fierce resolve. His eyes were blazing with excitement and anger at the utter faith in her voice.
"Why do you think I adopted the stained face--the disguise of a wandering minstrel?" he demanded impetuously. "It was to free myself from his infernal spying--to afford myself the opportunity of gaining your friendship without his knowledge! Why did he follow--always follow? Because at the command of his chief, he must needs obstruct my plan of winning you. There was always Princess Phaedra! Why did he watch by night in the forest. To spy! Can you not see it?"