Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/80

52 Gina was already beginning to reveal a feminine restlessness, to cherish some thoughts of emancipation. For the surroundings in which she exhibited them, her girlish gowns were a little lacking in modesty, so the provincial puritans said, but they possessed a great deal of character, and Gina wore them with a challenging swagger that was very alluring. Laurent felt himself more and more greatly fascinated by the radiant heiress, and that without discerning whether his feeling for her was envy or love.

He arrived at the moment when the perspective of continued pleasures and new successes was beginning to excite Gina and make her more communicative and more amiable to those around her. Won by her good spirits, her conciliating and jovial moods, Laurent himself often remained near her. When he sulked in his corner she would call him, tell him her plans, disclose the number of invitations being sent out for her first dance, show him her purchases, even deign to consult him about the shade or the hang of a gown or the choice of a ring.

"Come here, Peasant, and show that you have some taste!"

She darted out the sobriquet with a good humor that deprived it of any disagreeable implication. Would this momentary calm in their family relations endure? Laurent availed himself of it as a famished tramp happily warms himself at an hospitable hearth-side, forgetting that in an hour he will have to resume his road out in the snow and ice.

When Laurent went to the vestibule or to the porte-cochère to watch their departure, Gina accepted his attentions, consenting to let him hold her evening wrap, her fan, her umbrella. He watched her quickly