Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/253

Rh contained myself, I should have thrown the dirty money in his face … the dirty money!"

And feeling very lonely, very much abandoned, afraid of himself and dreading his first tête-à-tête with his heavy fortune, the idea came to him to visit the Tilbaks, so that he might dispel his black thoughts.

The other time, too, he had gone to them immediately after leaving the factory. Immediately regaining his self-possession, his serenity half recovered, he hurried along. As he walked he conjured up the vivifying and salubrious environment in which he was going to gain renewed vigor.

For some time past he had been neglecting his good friends. Honorable scruples were the cause of this apparent indifference. Henriette was no longer the same toward him; not that her affection for him had grown less,—quite to the contrary—but there was something febrile and constrained in her manner that made him think, without being in the least fatuous, that he was the object of a more vibrant feeling than mere fraternal friendship. But, incapable of forgetting the superb Gina, Laurent feared to nourish this passion, for which he could see no hope, for he would have killed himself rather than abuse the confidence which Siska and Vincent placed in him.

But today, as he wended his way toward The Cocoa-nut and his spirit succumbed to a gracious reaction, the image of Henriette appeared sweeter and more touching than ever, and, at this evocation, he experienced, or at least encouraged himself to experience, an inclination toward her less quiet and less platonic than in the past. Why had he wandered for so long? He held happiness in his hand. He could inaugurate his new life and break with his old associations in no