Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/162

138 great anxiety. The fact was, Claudie had played a very small part in the conversations of the master and the disciple, who were entirely taken up with their studies and occupations.

Guidon became more and more discreet. From their first association he had vowed to his protector a fidelity as complete and as intense as Blandine's. To her fanatical affection he joined that something of acuteness and lucidity, which intelligence and brain-culture add to sentiment. Guidon, the so-called stupid, the simpleton, the rustic good-for-nothing, represented moral value, in a body which was of an admirable form and which daily increased in strength and beauty.

With the tact, the second-sight, the instinct of loving natures, he suspected his sister's foolish infatuation for the Dykgrave, but he foresaw also that the Count would never return her affection. Guidon was but too well acquainted with his sister Claudie, and he knew better than anyone the abysses of vulgarity and the absolute incompatibilities existing between her and Kehlmark.

The pupil had even reached the point of perceiving that he was preferred by his