Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/83

Rh Saint-Fardier's tailor's. He will find a way to polish this young man up a bit. Come along, you, too."

There was no way of resisting Gina. Felicité swallowed her spite, and consoled herself for the unwonted favor which the capricious girl was bestowing upon the accursed child by appropriating the plaid trousers entirely without repugnance.

It was the first time that Laurent had gone out riding with his cousins. Seated next to the coachman, whom surprise had almost precipitated from his seat when Laurent perched there, he turned from time to time to show Gina a less sullen expression than usual, and to thank her by his unaccustomed joy. He counted for something in the Dobouziez family! This sudden access of favor just escaped making him vain. He felt a bit of conceit creeping into his spirit and looked down upon the pedestrians from the height of his grandeur. Under the effect of this moment he forgot the disparagement and the affronts that he had previously undergone, the harshness of Gina and her parents toward the Tilbaks, and he remembered, not without remorse, his blasphemies against the "nymph of the drain" on that sinister night of the novena when the cholera was raging.

Ah! the cholera-stricken, the wounded, the pariahs were far away! He had not abjured them, but he no longer worried about them. He was ready to recognize without pain or reserve the benificence of his guardian, to find Cousin Lydia very affectionate, to account for the Pasha's ferocity on the score of his liver trouble. He no longer bore a grudge even against Felicité.

A charming morning of reconciliation! It was a beautiful day, the streets seemed in holiday apparel,