Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/207

Rh glance to one side of the table or the others. It was very naive of their friend Gina to harbor blue devils and black butterflies!

Madame Béjard, suffering from an excruciating headache, presided with irreproachable tact over this dinner that seemed never to come to an end.

What would she have not given to retort to the calumny which, in order to flatter her husband, his friends, led by Dupoissy, were sprinkling upon the reputation of Bergmans!

"—Oh! very funny, very delicate! Did you understand it?"

And Dupoissy hurried to repeat the little scandal in veiled language. If Gina were not enthusiastic over It she must at least approve it with a smile or a nod.

Béjard was trying the fit of his new role. He was talking jargon in imitation of his colleagues, speaking at length of reports, investigations, commissions, budgets.

Dobouziez spoke even less than usual. The knowledge of his daughter's unhappiness had aged him. It was useless for her to pretend that she was happy and contented; he loved her too deeply not to feel intuitively what she was concealing. A year ago he had become a widower; his hair had whitened, his chest did not swell as proudly as it used to, his shoulders bent slightly. One would have thought, to see him, that some of his problems had remained unsolved, or that the algebraist had found their solutions inconsistent.

After dessert, the hostess was asked to sing. Regina still possessed a beautiful voice, supple and powerful as it had been that night at Hémixem, but made richer by the expression, the melancholy and the charm