His bitter, jeering tone was terrible to hear; but the dark, burning glare of his fierce eyes was more terrible still. Oh, it _was_ a dreadful fate to look forward to--a chained, manacled convict for life--and so unjustly condemned! With his fierce, gipsy blood, is it any wonder that every noble and generous feeling in his breast should turn to gall?
The dusky form crouching in the corner moved not, spoke not; but the inflamed eyes glared in the darkness like two red-hot coals.
"Well, mother, I was boasting of my cleverness when I interrupted myself--was I not?" he said, after a pause, during which he had been pacing, like a caged lion, up and down. "It is an exciting subject, you perceive; and if I get a little incoherent at times, you must only pass it over, and wait until I come to the point. That brief _exposé_ of my standing in the school was necessary, after all, as it will help to show the sort of estimation I was held in. When the vacations came, numberless were the invitations I received to accompany my fellow-students home. Having no home of my own to go to, I need hardly say those invitations were invariably accepted. How the good people who so lavishly bestowed their hospitality upon me feel now, is a question not very hard to answer. I fancy I can see the looks of horror, amazement and outraged dignity that will fill some of those aristocratic mansions, when they learn that the dashing son and heir of the exiled Count Germaine, on whom they have condescended to smile so benignly, is no other than the convicted gipsy thief. It will be a regular farce to witness, mother."
He laughed, but the grim, shadowy face in the corner was as immovable as a figure in stone.
"Among the friends I made at Eton," he went on, "there was one--a fine, princely-hearted fellow about my own age--called Lord Everly. He was my 'fag' for a time, and, owing to a similarity of tastes and dispositions, we were soon inseparable friends, Wherever one was, there the other was sure to be, until we were nicknamed 'Damon and Pythias' by the rest. Of course, the first vacation after his coming, I received a pressing invitation to accompany him home; and, without requiring much coaxing, I went."