Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/362

334 Those around them, on the contrary, were hugely enjoying the cruel ballistics. The people were ready to take the part of the intruder, whose looks and apparel proclaimed him to be one of them, against the gallants. It was a little to their servility and to their collective objection that the patrician lady was opposing her ever more irritating disdain.

A few drops of blood fell from a slight wound on Gina's cheek made by the hail of Paridael's ammunition. She barely turned her head away, made a little face of disgust, and far from honoring her discourteous adversary with a retort, she mechanically threw a handfull of pepernotes toward the other side of the square.

"Enough!" cried the fops, looking as though they were about to interfere. "Enough, you cad!"

But some rough-looking comrades wedged in between Paridael and those who were threatening him, crying: "Well aimed, old boy! Go it! Let him alone … If s carnival time!… Free play! Free play!"

Paridael heard neither the one nor the other. Made feverish by the exercise, like a sportsman breaking some record, he had neither eyes nor attention for anyone but Regina. He lashed her and riddled her with real animosity. His wiry arm performed the function of a sling with as much violence as precision.

In the heat of the firing, each volley brought him nearer to her, the force of his throw carried him along with his shot, and it seemed to him as if his fingers had lengthened until they touched her cheeks, and that he was tearing her skin with his nails!

Gina, no less stubborn, persisted in serving as a