“I swear.”
Thus reassured, the old woman came close up to her bed; and, in an animated but low voice, she said,—
“Well, I mean this: if you accept now what Papa Ravinet will offer you, in six months you will be worse than any of Mrs. Hilaire’s girls. Ah! don’t tell me ‘I do not mean to touch him.’ The old rascal has ruined more than one who was just as good as you are. That’s his business; and, upon my word! he understands it. Now, forewarned, forearmed. I am going down to make you a soup. I’ll be back at night. And above all, you hear, not a word!”
By one word Mrs. Chevassat had plunged Henrietta once more into an abyss of profound despair.
“Great God!” she said to herself, “why must the generous assistance of this old man be a new snare for me?”
With her elbow resting on her pillow, her forehead supported by her hand, her eyes streaming with tears, she endeavored to gather her ideas, which seemed to be scattered to the four winds, like the leaves of trees after a storm; when a modest, dry cough aroused her from her meditations.
She trembled, and raised her head.
In the framework of the open door stood a man of mature age and of medium height, looking at her.
It was Papa Ravinet, who, after a long conversation with the concierge, and after some words with his amiable wife, had come up to inquire after his patient. She guessed at it, rather than she knew; for, although she lived in the same house with him, she was not in the same part of the building, and she scarcely recollected having caught a glimpse of him now and then in crossing the yard.
“That,” she thought, “is the man who plots my ruin, the wretch whom I am to avoid.”