Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/117

Rh through which the two women passed. Generally they had no idea what had become of him. In setting out on these excursions he took care not to say where he was going, just as on his return he kept silence as to how he had passed his time and what the things were that possessed him. How reconcile such out-breakings with the filial devotion which he entertained for his grandmother! On his return from these expeditions he would weep like a child and would beg the good lady's pardon, but would say, it was beyond his power to do otherwise; this change, this tumultuous diversion was necessary to him; he felt a need to play the fool, to intoxicate himself with movement and noise, in order to drive away God knows what preoccupation; for on that point he refused to explain himself. Or else, he would allege headaches or neuralgia, the remains of his serious illness of former days at the boarding-school.

It happened one day that, at the request of Madame de Kehlmark, he conducted Blandine to the gayest ball of the season. Towards dawn, he took her under cover of the domino into the public dancing-halls of a far lower class, presented her to any