Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/56

32 "Ah, the savages!" exclaimed the Burgomaster, with an air of protection and contempt. "A population of noisy braggarts! The only vagabonds and mendicants of the country! Our Guidon, my ne'er-do-well of a son, has'gone amongst them! Sad to say, he might be one of them!"

"I will ask your son to guide me there one day, Burgomaster," said Kehlmark, leading his guests into another apartment. His eyes had brightened at the recollection of the little pipe-player. Now they were veiled, and his voice had in it a trembling, an accent of indescribable melancholy, followed by a sort of sob disguised as a cough. Claudie kept looking right and left, casting up the market value of the various knick-knacks and curiosities that fell under her notice.

In the billiard room, which they had just entered, an entire wall was covered, as is well known, by Conradin and Frederick of Baden, a painting done by Kehlmark himself from an engraving very popular in Germany. The last kiss of the two young princes, victims of Charles of Anjou, gave their faces an expression of deep, almost sacramental, love, which had been rendered with great intensity by Henry.