Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/92

64 sorry; I give you back your hull." And laughing, she ran to join a neighboring group in which her friends, the Vanderlings, were chattering.

Hearing Gina's clear voice, Laurent turned toward the speakers. He regarded the proprietor of the yacht attentively.

Béjard had, in addition to the haughty manner common to the great merchants of Antwerp, a furtive expression in his eyes and a crafty manner of speech. Forty-five years old, of medium height, dry and gnarled, a yellowish, almost watery complexion, a hooked nose, long reddish beard and auburn hair brushed back from his forehead, thick lips, grey eyes, an arched forehead and distorted ears; such was the physical aspect of the man. In his manner and his features there was both the shrewdness of a musty Jew behind the counter in a sordid alley of Frankfort or Amsterdam, and the audacity of an adventurer who has skimmed the seas and traded in vague, distant lands. But this mixture of braggadocio and honeyed urbanity was irritating in its atrocious discordance. His expression was protean and desperate; his dull eyes gave the lie to a sharp word, or his crafty, cloying voice contradicted the malicious, hard gleam of his grey eyes. Withal, he was correct, well bred, a facile conversationalist, a prodigal host.

He was not well liked in society, but he was sought assiduously, people suspected him, but sought to propitiate him. Through his fortune, his activity, his address he had become an influence in the world of business, and now he was seeking to cut a figure in the world of politics and that of art and literature in Antwerp. He paraded the most complete tolerance, extolled broad ideas, claimed to be a free-trader and