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Updated: June 15, 2025
The youth winced under the tone, but stood his ground. "Where is Anne?" he asked, something sullenly. "Upstairs. Why do you ask?" "Messer Basterga is not coming to supper. Nor Grio. They bade me tell her. And that they would be late." "Very well, I will tell her." But it was evident that that was not all Louis had in his mind.
Basterga and Grio were absent: if this fool could be removed, even for an hour or two, Anne would have the house to herself, and by midnight the crisis might be overpast. "I will come with you," he said. Louis uttered a sigh of relief. He had expected and he had very nearly received another answer. "Good," he said. "But he does not want me." "Both or neither," Claude replied coolly.
And in a kind of frenzy of enthusiasm the scholar fell to pacing the floor, now mouthing hexameters, now spurning with his foot a pot or an alembic which had the ill-luck to lie in his path. Grio watched him, and watching him, grew only more puzzled and more puzzled.
Then he recalled Basterga's threats, the Syndic's face, the departure of Louis and Grio; and his heart sank as lead sinks. The rumour so quickly spread by what hints, what innuendoes, what cunning inquiries, what references to the old, invisible, bedridden woman, he could but guess that rumour bore witness to a malice and a thirst for revenge which were not likely to stop at words.
Grio cried, plucking up spirit and speaking with a gleam of defiance in his eye. "For it is my opinion that you have no more chance of moving him than I have! And so to be plain you have it, Messer Basterga. For how are you going to move him? With what? Tell me that!" "Ah!" "With money?" Grio continued with a fluency which showed he spoke on a subject to which he had given much thought.
"She has gone upstairs," Basterga answered with one eye on Claude. He seemed to be unable to shake off a secret doubt of him. "Then let her come down," Grio answered with a grin, half drunken, half brutal, "and make her show sport. Here, you there," to the young man who shared Claude's table, "call her down and " "Sit still!"
But next week, on some convenient day, come to me, young sir, and I may be able to give you a word of advice. In the forenoon will be best. Until then see to your behaviour!" The young man bowed and waited, standing where he was, until the bustle attending the Syndic's departure had quite died away. Then he turned. "Now, Messer Grio," he said briskly, "for my part I am ready."
The great pot was there, simmering on its hook; and on the small table beside it, the table that Basterga and Grio occupied, stood a platter with a few dried herbs and a knife fresh from her hand. Claude made sure that he was unobserved, and raising the knife to his lips, kissed the haft gently and reverently, thinking what she had suffered many a day while using it!
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