Would he turn his face away in disgust?
What had she a right to tell?
She knew well that her father would wish her to keep to that secrecy which so far had sheltered them--at least until Jethro Fawe's coming.
At last she turned and looked him in the eyes, the flush gone from her face.
"I'm not Irish--do I look Irish ?" she asked quietly, though her heart was beating unevenly.
"You look more Irish than anything else, except, maybe, Slav or Hungarian--or Gipsy," he said admiringly and unwittingly.
"I have Gipsy blood in me," she answered slowly, "but no Irish or Hungarian blood." "Gipsy--is that so ?" he said spontaneously, as she watched him so intently that the pulses throbbed at her temples.
A short time ago Fleda might have announced her origin defiantly, now her courage failed her.

She did not wish him to be prejudiced against her.
"Well, well," he added, "I only just guessed at it, because there's something unusual and strong in you, not because your eyes are so dark and your hair so brown." "Not because of my 'wild beauty'-- I thought you were going to say that," she added ironically and a little defiantly.

"I got some verses by post the other day from one of your friends in Lebanon--a stock-rider I think he was, and they said I had a 'wild beauty' and a 'savage sweetness.'" He laughed, yet he suddenly saw her sensitive vigilance, and by instinct he felt that she was watching for some sign of shock or disdain on his part; yet in truth he cared no more whether she had Gipsy blood in her than he would have done if she had said she was a daughter of the Czar.
"Men do write that kind of thing," he added cheerfully, "but it's quite harmless.

There was a disease at college we called adjectivitis.

Your poet friend had it.