e had spoken out, he had put himself on a level with his master;
he had worsted him, or he was much mistaken. "Perhaps, from the way you
have played with the little prude below, it is a woman. But they are
plenty, even in Geneva, and he is rich and old."

"No, nor with a woman."

"Then with what?"

"With this!" Basterga replied. And for the third time, drawing himself
up to his full height, he tapped his brow. "Do you doubt its power?"

For answer Grio shrugged his shoulders, his manner sullen and
contemptuous.

"You do?"

"I don't see how it works, Messer Basterga," the veteran muttered. "I
say not you have not good wits. You have, I grant it. But the best of
wits must have their means and method. It is not by wishing and
willing----"

"How know you that?"

"Eh?"

"How know you that?" Basterga repeated with sudden energy, and he shook
a massive finger before the other's eyes. "But how know you anything,"
he continued with disdain, as he dropped the hand again, and turned on
his heel, "dolt, imbecile, rudiment that you are? Ay, and blind to boot,
for it was but the other day I worked a miracle before you, and you
learned nothing from it."

"It is no question of miracles," the other muttered doggedly. "But of
how you will persuade the Syndic Blondel to betray Geneva to Savoy!"

"Is it so? Then tell me this: the girl below who smacked your face a
month back because you laid a hand upon her wrist, and who would have
had you put to the door the same day--how did I tame her? Can you answer
me that?"

Grio's face fell remarkably. "No, master," he said, nodding
thoughtfully. "I grant it. I cannot. A wilder filly was never handled."

"So! And yet I tamed her. And she suffers you! She's sport for us within
bounds. Yet do you think she likes it when you paw her hand or lay your
dirty arm about her waist, or steal a kiss? Think you the blood mounts
and ebbs for nothing? Or the tears rise and the lip trembles and the
limbs shake for sheer pleasure. I tell you, if eyes could slay, you had
breathed your last some weeks ago."

"I know," Grio answered, nodding thoughtfully. "I have wondered and
wondered, ay, many a time, how you did it."

"Yet I did it? You grant that?"

"Yes."

"And you do not understand--with what?"

Grio shook his head.

"Then why mistrust me now, blockhead," the other retorted, "when I say
that as I charmed her, I can charm Blondel? Ay, and more easily. You
know not how I did the one, nor