yndic did not know he had reason to suspect that
Basterga bore the Grand Duke's commission, and was in Geneva to further
his master's ends. The second source of his uneasiness he did not
acknowledge even to himself, and yet it was the more powerful: it was a
suspicion--a strong suspicion, though he had met Basterga but
twice--that in parleying with the scholar he was dealing with a man for
whom he was no match, puff himself out as he might; and who secretly
despised him.

Perhaps the fact that the latter feeling ceased to vex him before he had
been a minute in the room, was the best testimony to Basterga's tact we
could desire. Not that the scholar was either effusive or abject. It was
rather by a frank address which took equality for granted, and by an
easy assumption that the visit had no importance, that he calmed Messer
Blondel's nerves and soothed his pride.

Presently, "If I do not the honour of my poor apartment so pressingly as
some," he said, "it is out of no lack of respect, Messer Syndic. But
because, having had much experience of visitors, I know that nothing
fits them so well as to be left at liberty, nothing irks them so much as
to be over-pressed. Here now I have some things that are thought to be
curious, even in Padua, but I do not know whether they will interest
you."

"Manuscripts?"

"Yes, manuscripts and the like. This," Basterga lifted one from the
table and placed it in his visitor's hands, "is a facsimile, prepared
with the utmost care, of the 'Codex Vaticanus,' the most ancient
manuscript of the New Testament. Of interest in Geneva, where by the
hands of your great printer, Stephens, M. de Beza has done so much to
advance the knowledge of the sacred text. But you are looking at that
chart?"

"Yes. What is it, if it please you?"

"It is a plan of the ancient city of Aurelia," Basterga replied, "which
Caesar, in the first book of his Commentaries places in Switzerland, but
which, some say, should be rather in Savoy."

"Indeed, Aurelia?" the Syndic muttered, turning it about. It was a plan
beautifully and elaborately finished, but, like most of the plans of
that day, it was without names. "Aurelia?"

"Yes, Aurelia."

"But I seem to--is this water?"

"Yes, a lake," Basterga replied, stooping with a faint smile to the
plan.

"And this a river?"

"Yes."

"Aurelia? But--I seem to know the line of this wall, and these bastions.
Why, it is--Messer Basterga," in a tone of surprise, not u