"Why not Bacchus?" Claude muttered, his eyes on his plate. In spite of the strongest resolutions, he could not keep silence.
"Bacchus? And why, boy?" frowning darkly.
"He were better bestowed on a tun of wine," the youth retorted, without looking up.
"That you might take his place, I suppose?" Basterga retorted swiftly. "What say you, girl? Will you have him?" And when she did not answer, "Bread, do you hear?" he cried harshly and imperiously. "Bread, I say!" And having forced her to come within reach to serve him, "What do you say to it?" he continued, his hand on the trencher, his eyes on her face. "Answer me, girl, will you have him?"
She did not answer, but that which he had quite falsely attributed to her before, a blush, slowly and painfully darkened her cheeks and neck. He seized her brutally by the chin, and forced her to raise her face. "Blushing, I see?" he continued. "Blushing, blushing, eh? So it is for him you thrill, and lie awake, and dream of kisses, is it? For this new youth and not for Grio? Nay, struggle not! Wrest not yourself away! Let Grio, too, see you!"
Claude, his back to the scene, drove his nails into the palms of his hands. He would not turn. He would not, he dared not see what was passing, or how they were handling her, lest the fury in his breast sweep all away, and he rise up and disobey her! When a movement told him that Basterga had released her--with a last ugly taunt aimed as much at him as at her--he still sat bearing it, curbing, drilling, compelling himself to be silent. Ay, and still to be silent, though the voice that so cruelly wounded her was scarcely mute before it began again.
"Tissot, indeed!" Basterga cried in the same tone of bitter jeering. "A fig for Tissot! No more shall we
Upon his viler metal test our purest pure, And see him transmutations three endure!
And why? Because a mightier than Tissot is here! Because," with a coarse laugh,
"Our stone angelical whereby All secret potencies to light are brought
has itself suffered a transmutation! A transmutation do I say! Rather an eclipse, a darkening! He, whom matrons for their maidens fear, has come, has seen, has conquered! And we poor mortals bow before him."
Still Claude, his face burning, his ears tingling, put force upon himself and sat mute, his eyes on the board. He would not look round, he would not acknowledge what was passing. Basterga's tone conveyed a meaning coarser and more offensive than the words he spoke; and Claude knew it, and knew that the girl, at whom he dared not look knew it, as she stood helpless, a butt, a target for their gloating eyes. He would not look for he remembered. He saw the scalding liquid blister the skin, saw the rounded arm quiver with pain; and remembering and seeing, he was resolved that the lesson should not be lost on him. If it was only by suffering he could serve her, he would serve her.