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178 outside; she understood Bergmans' intransigeance, she loved him for it so deeply that she, the proud Gina, espoused the cause of this revolutionary, or, as her husband termed him, this king of the wastrels, in the very depth of her heart.

And during the trouble, when she had met Laurent Paridael, she had been aloof and bantering because it was habitual, because of a certain reserve, because of a last false shame that prevented her from letting him know that she had been converted to the benevolent sentiments which she had so despised and carped at in him.

In reality, at the time of the election she had prayed ardently for Bergmans' success and cursed her husband's good fortune. So much so that the looting of their house on that evening of popular fury had corresponded with her mood of weariness, vexation and failure. But as she was never to be Bergmans' wife she would keep such feelings sealed in the bottom of her heart. She was living only for her son, a baby a year old, who was the image of her, and for her father, the only rich person she still loved and believed in. Those little sirens, Angéle and Cora, continued to waste effort in trying to inculcate in Gina their own special philosophy: to take life as though it was a perpetual pleasure party, never to conjure up dreams or ideals, to attach one's self but moderately so that detachment would be easy, to profit by youth and the smile of opportunity, to close one's eyes to all sadness and pain. They were at the dinner, alluring, in evening gowns, their bodies prepossessing, laughing and rattling like plants vivacious in the conquering breath of summer; bawling, cackling, irritating their neighbors, and from time to time darting a conniving