Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/136

108 of the feeling that he inspired in Laurent, and amused himself by irritating him, but distantly and prudently, as one irritates a watch dog that can unloose himself.

"My word!" he often used to say to Gina; "he hasn't a reassuring manner at all, that young ragamuffin! Look how he gloats over us with his assassin's eyes! Don't you think he will bite some fine day? Were I you I should muzzle him!"

In fairness to Gina it must be said that although Bergmans' praise of the little savage had annoyed her, she was nevertheless tempted to defend Laurent against Béjard's sarcasm.

Laurent was drawn closer to Bergmans by the fact that he was a competitor against Béjard. Laurent had heard Bergmans speak publicly, and, having been profoundly stirred by his imaginative and savory eloquence, he was not only his friend, but his partisan, too.

Nevertheless, by degrees a feeling of jealousy took possession of him, a feeling so vague that he could not have fairly said whether he was jealous of Gina or of Bergmans. One of Bergmans' inoffensive jokes, made before Gina, had wounded him. He turned his back on his friend, was sulky with him for days afterward, and was moodier toward him than toward any of the others.

"What's the matter with our little cousin now?" asked Bergmans.

But, unlike Béjard, who was amused by this fit of bad temper, Bergmans sought the poor boy and scolded him tenderly with so much real kindliness that the child finished by being captivated once more and asked Bergmans' forgiveness for his whims.

Since his puberty the capricious and indefinite