Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/205

Rh a financial way, and made a profit by overestimating the value of the havoc.

So that it was in a repainted and refurnished mansion, costlier than ever, showing no traces of the runners' visit, that monsieur de député feasted his trusty friends; his colleagues of the Antwerp "bench" in parliament, his equals the rich; Dobouziez, Vanderling, Saint-Fardier senior and the two young Saint-Fardier couples. Van Frans and the other Vans, the Peeters, the Willems, the Janssens, not omitting the indispensable Dupoissy.

The beautiful Madame Béjard presided at the dinner. She was more beautiful than ever. She was loaded with compliments and congratulations, and Dupoissy could not lift his glass without looking gallantly at Madame la représentante.

In truth, however, Madame Béjard was profoundly unhappy.

Her husband, whom she had never loved, she now detested and scorned. For a long time past their household had been a living hell; but her pride made her suffer tortures, and she succeeded in acting so cleverly before the world that she fooled all the gossips.

She knew that her husband was maintaining an English ballet girl, a great, common, vulgar woman who swore like a trooper, smoked cigarettes until they burned her fingers, and drank gin by the bottle.

Virtuous and upright, proud, but possessing a character to which any slovenly actions were repugnant. Gina had been forced to put up with her husband's cynical confidences. The infamy of the private and public life of the people of her world had been revealed to her by this aspirant. And, suddenly, she had seen clearly through this society, so brilliant from the