Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/301

Rh been by their tempting blonde and dark beauty, so harmoniously different.

A while before he had become acquainted with the guard; in off-hours he offered him cigars and treated him to an occasional drink, and had him explain the details of his work. He complimented the guard upon his conquest, and when he found them together, inquired with a quick look about the progress of their affair, and the slightly embarrassed laugh and lively look of the guard answered him eloquently. As for the girl, she was so busy making sheep's eyes at her gallant that she never saw the signals of intelligence and interest that Paridael brought to their love. This happiness of others, this idyll of two young and handsome people both beautified and tortured the whimsical Paridael, the unacknowledged lover of Gina.

However, they could no longer restrain their desire for each other. She finished by joining him in his little wooden hut on the nights when he was on duty. One winter night of snow and gale Laurent saw them, through the half -opened door, crouching coldly in a corner, the girl on the fellow's knees. There was no light, but the red glow of the cast-iron stove betrayed the union of their silhouettes.

A spree on the other side of the city separated Laurent from his friends. Upon returning from it he was surprised to find that the young man was neither in his little house, nor on the tracks. If Laurent remembered rightly, this was the week during which the boy was on day service. Was he ill? Had they replaced him? Paridael worried about his unaccustomed absence as though the poor devil had been bound to his heart by the ties of long friendship. It was worse when, at