“I won’t go with you.” Cynthia pushed the child forward and nodded that Monsieur Marge was to follow her. This might be—who could tell?—just the right moment for him to become a Basque again.
Thomasina, the clock again in her arms, stumbled through the doorway. Cynthia heard nothing for a moment, then such a heartfelt cry of delight and joy as made her, for the second time that day, brush away the tears. Followed, in three voices, much talk in the rapid Basque tongue, and after a moment Grandmother Yturbe came out, to throw her arms about the petite Americaine.
“She says,” twinkled Monsieur behind her, “that you are wonderful, that you found her little cabbage.”
“Non—non. It was Monsieur,” Cynthia gestured towards her host. “It’s all right anyway, Thomasina would have come home for dinner,” protested the embarrassed Cynthia.
They got away at last, but there was more to come.
After dinner Cynthia and Madame were sitting beneath the vines. Madame’s fingers flew steadily as her needles ate up the gray yarn, and moonlight bright as day dripped through the dark leaves of the arbor. Someone came slowly up the stone walk and spoke in Basque. It was Thomasina’s grandfather.
“He has come to thank the American lady,” explained M. Marge after a moment’s conversation and added that he had told M. Yturbe that Thomasina was to keep the clock for herself. “After all, we have no grandchildren ourselves.” And a moment later he translated again, “He asks if the American lady will do him a portrait of his little one; he will of course be proud to pay for it.”
“I’d adore it,” cried Cynthia, “Oh, what a day!”
The men moved off together, talking. Cynthia saw them cross the road slowly, two old men together.
Madame, chuckling richly, made one of her rare remarks in English: “They not be back till late.” But she seemed more pleased than concerned.