Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/275

Rh themselves at home, as well as young married and engaged couples, who preferred less inflammatory modes of pleasure.

Claudie's visit had left Kehlmark in a state of depression, which he had not known during these latter days. He was grieved at the hatred with which the virago regarded him. He even reproached himself with not having confessed to her the truth. But that would have been to betray Guidon, perhaps to ruin him. No, what he had been able to avow to a saint like Blandine he could not reveal to a creature so gross as Claudie. And these thoughts made him repent the more deeply the amorous comedy he had so long kept up with regard to her.

Guidon, enervated by the indisposition of his friend, who had deemed it advisable to conceal from him the step Claudie had made, expressed the intention of going out and taking a turn through the Fair, hoping that the open air would put him to rights. Henry made every attempt to detain him, to dissuade him from going out at such a juncture. But it seemed to young Govaertz that something imperiously summoned him down there, something called him to the