Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/104

80 she abhorred nothing but treachery, duplicity, and baseness of soul.

Such an evangelical freethinker was bound infallibly to agree with an equally very dissenting Christian. The Dowager laughed, not ill-naturedly, at what she called the mummeries of Blandine, but in no way interfered with her in the practice of her religion, which, indeed, was on a very reduced scale. With her gay, optimistic, critical disposition, Madame de Kehlmark formed a striking contrast with the prematurely reflective and hardened character of the young girl, whom she nicknamed her little Minerva, her Pallas Athene.

The old lady amused herself by instructing her, and taught her so well to read and write that she made her at last her reader and secretary.

But she instilled into the girl above all things a devotion to her grandson, her Henry, who was then studying at Bodemberg Schloss, and of whom Madame de Kehlmark said archly, that he was her only prejudice, her superstition, her fanaticism. Without ceasing, she talked to her young companion of this little prodigy, this precocious child. She read and read over to her again the