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Updated: June 17, 2025
She had taken refuge from Grio's coarseness in the farthest corner of the hearth: where stooping over a pot, she hid her burning face. Had they gone too far at last? So far, that in despair she had made up her mind to resist? Claude wondered. He hoped that they had. Basterga, too, thought it possible; but he smiled wickedly, in the pride of his resources.
And he whispered in the other's ear something which Claude could not catch. Whatever it was it cooled Grio's rage. He ceased to struggle, nodded sulkily and sat back. He stretched out his hand, took a long draught, and having emptied his jug, "Here's Geneva!" he said, wiping his lips with the air of a man who had given a toast. "Only don't let him cross me! That is all. Where is the wench?"
She stood where he had left her, in the same attitude of amazement into which Grio's accusation had cast her. As she met his gaze then, at last, she melted. The lamplight showed her eyes brimming over with tears; her lips quivered, her breast heaved under the storm of resentment. "How dare they say it?" she cried. "How dare they? That I would harm a child? A child?"
He paused rather suddenly, as his eyes met Grio's: and a little of his dignity fell from him with the pause. His manner underwent a subtle change from the judicial to the paternal. When he resumed, he wagged his head tolerantly, and a modicum of sorrow mingled with his anger. "Ah, Messer Grio! Messer Grio!" he said, "it is you, is it? For shame! For shame! This is sad, this is lamentable!
She hurried down to the living-room and made sure that the strong shutters were secured; then up to Basterga's room and to Grio's, and as far as her strength went she piled the furniture against the iron-barred casements that looked on to the ramparts.
Grio's altered aspect, his crestfallen air owned the virtue of the argument if not of the citation; which he did not understand. He drew a deep breath. "Per Bacco," he said, "if you succeed in doing it, Messer Basterga " "I shall do it," Basterga retorted, "if you do not spoil all with your drunken tricks!" Grio was silent a moment, sunk plainly in reflection.
She was going to close the shutters when Claude interposed, raised the heavy shutters and bolted and barred them. He was turning from them when Grio's step was heard descending. Strange to say the Spaniard's first glance was at the windows, and he looked genuinely taken aback when he saw that they were closed.
"Enough fooling for to-day," he said, and stealthily he repressed Grio's resistance. "Enough! Enough! I see that the young gentleman does not altogether understand our humours. He will come to them in time, in time," his voice almost fawning, "and see we mean no harm. Did I understand," he continued, addressing Claude directly, "that your father knew Messer Blondel?" "Who is now Syndic?
And Louis' flight? And Grio's? And Basterga's? for he did not return. To believe that all these, taken together, these and the outrage of the morning, portended anything but danger, anything but the worst, demanded a hopefulness that even his youth and his love could not compass. Yet when she descended he met her with brave looks.
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