Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/360

332 Mesdames Béjard, Falk, Lesly and both the little Saint-Fardiers.

He had not seen his cousin since the sacking of the Béjard mansion, and he was astonished at feeling, at the sight of his so idolized Gina, only spite and a sort of bitterness. He grudged her, so to speak, his love for her. His stormy life and the desolation of the pariahs with whom he had come into contact were not foreign to this sudden change.

But the catastrophe of The Gina had complicated this antipathy with a superstitious terror and aversion. The nymph of the drain, the evil genius of the Dobouziez manufactory, was now exercising her evil influence over the whole city. She was poisoning the Scheldt and contaminating the ocean.

The vague sadness which her face reflected, the indolent part which she took in the battle of pepernotes, the nonchalance with which she defended herself would without doubt at any other time have disarmed and softened the heart of the worshipping Paridael.

It cannot be said that at any other time he would not have again found something of his early religion for the lofty idol, but he was in one of his days, now ever more frequent, of ill-humor and of biting irascibility, in one of those states of mind in which, gorged and saturated with rancor, he had a desire to smash some precious bibelot, to damage some work whose symmetry and immutable serenity seemed an insult to the general distress; a critical juncture in which one is capable of tormenting and hurting in every way the most beloved person.

He found it piquant to join the batallion of young fops who, stationed on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, that they might be easily seen, were paying