"Well, only if you abandon me for another reason, remember what I tell you; you will be a dead man, and she, a lost woman."
She opened the door; he tried to take her hand; she repulsed him.
"Adieu!"
Hector ran to the window to assure himself of her departure. She was ascending the avenue leading to the station.
"Well, that's over," thought he, with a sigh of relief. "Jenny was a good girl."
XVI
The count told half a truth when he spoke to Jenny of his marriage. Sauvresy and he had discussed the subject, and if the matter was not as ripe as he had represented, there was at least some prospect of such an event. Sauvresy had proposed it in his anxiety to complete his work of restoring Hector to fortune and society.
One evening, about a month before the events just narrated, he had led
Hector into the library, saying:
"Give me your ear for a quarter of an hour, and don't answer me hastily.
What I am going to propose to you deserves serious reflection."
"Well, I can be serious when it is necessary."