The boy took Gorgas as a matter of course. She was thirteen and a girl; he was eleven and a boy—those differences represent leagues.
“I heard all you said,” Gorgas informed Blynn. “We often hear people going by on that path. Your German started Bardek after you. This is his German day. We—”
“Chuck” was examining things, with Bardek at his side explaining volubly.
“Do you speak German, too?” Blynn asked incredulously.
“Nur ein wenig,” she replied modestly, but her fine tones told much. “Besser sprech’ ich fransösisch und italienisch. Ich versteh’—I understand German, but much better than I speak it. The ‘German days’ don’t come as often as the French days. Bardek is all German today. Listen to him. His English gets German twists in it today.”
“It looks almost finished”
“Why, it’s quite jolly here.” Blynn seated himself on a comfortable stone, and assumed the air of a man who had done this sort of thing every day. “It’s quite a ‘hunky,’ as ‘Chuck’ would call it. I’d like to live this way myself. What man wouldn’t?”
“I’m so glad you like it,” Gorgas whispered. She leaned over and rested her arm on his knee. “Chuck” and Bardek were inside the tent. The wife was grinning at the strangers and singing a gentle lullaby. “We have fine times here. You’re the first person to come by on that path for over a week. We sing and talk languages and Bardek tells stories of his travels. He has been all over the world. Some of them are whoppers,” she dropped her voice still lower, “but you can tell by his eyes that he is making them up. And we—oh, wait till I show you my latest.”
She darted into the tent and returned with a disk of hammered copper, a dinner-plate, partly inlaid along the entire edge with a delicate silver tracery of a strange Byzantine design. “The holes had to be all cut out, and the silver filed and fitted. It must exactly fit, you know, exactly. Bardek scolds if it isn’t right to a millionth of an inch. It looks almost finished, but there are hours of pounding yet.”