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"I have also," he continued, "my eye upon him, as I shall have it upon Basterga. Will that satisfy you, Messer Petitot?" The councillor leaned forward. "Fac salvam Genevam!" he replied in a voice low and not quite steady. "Do that, keep Geneva safe guard well our faith, our wives and little ones and I care not what you do!" And he rose from his seat. The Fourth Syndic did not answer.
But no one took on himself to gainsay him in his particular province, the superintendence of the guard; and though Baudichon sighed and Petitot shook his head, the word was left with him. "Is that all, Messer Fabri?" he asked. "Yes, if we lay it to heart." "But I want to know," Baudichon struck in, puffing pompously, "what is to be done about Basterga." "Basterga?
Nevertheless with each sigh and glance, though sigh and glance lost no whit of their fervour, it might have been observed that his face grew brighter; and that little by little, as he reflected on what had passed, he sat more firmly and strongly in his chair. Not that he purposed buying his life at the price which Basterga had put on it. Never!
Blondel's voice sounded hollow and unnatural. Sunk in the high-backed chair, his chin fallen on his breast, it was in his eyes alone, peering from below bent brows, that he seemed to live. "He would not waive his claim," Basterga answered gently, "save on a but in substance that was all." Blondel raised himself slowly and stiffly in the chair. His lips parted.
"Yet, chemistry you pursue that?" the other rejoined with a glance at the farther table and its load of strange-looking phials and retorts. "As an amusement," Basterga replied with a gesture of haughty deprecation. "A parergon, if you please.
And he looked fiercely at Louis Gentilis, the young man who sat opposite Claude. But Louis only looked at Basterga and grinned. And Basterga it was plain was not in the mood to amuse himself. Whatever the reason, the big man was no longer at his ease in Mercier's company.
"Yes," Basterga replied in a sorrowful voice. "I, too. No wonder I feel for you. I have not known it long, nor has it proceeded far in my case. I have even hopes, at least there are times when I have hopes, that the physicians may be mistaken." Blondel's small eyes bulged suddenly larger. "In that event?" he cried hoarsely. "In that event surely "
I am sure you would put him right on that," with a faint whine in his tone. "He would not strip a man to the last rag. He would not ask thousands for it." "No," Basterga answered, with something of asperity and even contempt in his tone. "He does not ask thousands for it, Messer Blondel. But he asks, none the less, something you cannot give." "Money?" "No." "Then what is it?"
"I want not to rake up bygones if you will let them be," Claude answered with a sulky air, half assumed. "It was you who attacked me." "You puppy!" Grio roared. "Do you think " "Enough!" Basterga said again: and his eyes leaving the young man fixed themselves on his companion. "I begin to understand," he murmured, his voice low, but not the less menacing for that, or for the cat-like purr in it.
"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!"
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