Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/44

16 levelled at him, seemed to reproach him for the lusty appetite of his twelve years. Truly, she made him let fall glasses from his fingers and morsels from his fork. These accidents did not always earn him the epithet of clumsy, but his cousin could make a contemptuous little grimace which told her thoughts very clearly. And this grimace was as nothing compared to the bantering smile of the impeccable Gina.

Cousin William, whom it was necessary to call several times before the family took their places at the table, would finally arrive, his expression preoccupied, his mind upon a new invention, computing the results, calculating the probable income from one or another improvement, his brain crammed with figures.

With his wife Monsieur Dobouziez talked shop and she understood it admirably, and when answering him made use of barbarous technical words that would have proved a stumbling block to many a man in the same business.

Monsieur Dobouziez never ceased figuring, and relaxed only to admire and cajole his daughter. More and more Laurent came to feel the absolute and almost idolatrous understanding existing between them. If the man of business became human in troubling himself about her, then, reciprocally, Gina abandoned, with her father, her airs of superiority, her little manner of conceit and detachment. Monsieur Dobouziez anticipated her desires, satisfied her least caprice, defended her even against her mother. With Gina he, the practical and matter-of-fact man, amused himself in futilities.

On each vacation Laurent found his little cousin more beautiful and more distant. Her parents had withdrawn her from school, and able, worldly tutors