Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/180

156 young wretch entered the château there's nothing for anybody but him! You and I sink into the background. What a sudden infatuation! Two fingers of the same hand are not more inseparable."

"Well, what can you have to object to this attachment?" said Blandine, seeking once more to overcome her misgivings. "This Guidon Govaertz is a nice boy, unappreciated by his relatives, much superior, as everything shows, by his intelligence and sentiments, to the most part of these coarse islanders. The Count is right to make so much of the poor child, who for the rest, grows every day more and more deserving of his kindnesses."

"Yes, agreed; but Monsieur exaggerates his patronage. He does not sufficiently observe a proper distance, but shows, really, too much affection for the snotty nose. A Count of Kehlmark should not mix himself up too much, hang it! with a former cow and swine herdsman."

"Once more, what do you mean?"

For reply, Landrillon merely plunged his hands into his pockets and, staring in the air, began to whistle a sort of parody of the little shepherd boy's song. Then he went away,