"If it be a question of moving guns or wagons----" "But it is not, by your leave, Messer Fabri, as I am informed," the man who had spoken before objected; supporting his opinion simply because he had voiced it, a thing seen every day in such assemblies.

Fabri replied on him in the other sense: and presently Blondel had the satisfaction of listening to a discussion in which the one party said a dozen things that he saw would be of use to him--some day.
One only said not a word, and that was Petitot.

He listened to all with a puzzled look.

He resented the insult which Blondel had flung at his friend Baudichon, but he saw all going against them, and no chance of redress; nay, capital was being made out of that which should have been a disadvantage.

Worst of all, he was uneasy, fancying--he was very shrewd--that he caught a glimpse, under the Fourth Syndic's manner, of another man: that he detected signs of emotion, a feverishness and imperiousness not quite explained by the circumstances.
He got the notion from this that the Fourth Syndic had learned more from Basterga than he had disclosed.