Jacques followed her towards the station. This young woman was very lively, and walked with sonorous tread. She looked adorably pretty. She could be no more than twenty, and was plump and fair, with lovely, merry eyes that laughed at life. Apparently in a great hurry, she did not even notice that a man was following her, but briskly ascended the flight of steps in the Cour du Havre into the grand hall, along which she almost ran in her haste to reach the ticket-office of the Ceinture line. And as she there asked for a first-class ticket to Auteuil, Jacques took the same. He then accompanied her through the waiting-rooms, on to the platform, and seated himself beside her in the compartment she selected. The train at once started.
"I have plenty of time," thought he; "I'll kill her in a tunnel."
But opposite them, an elderly lady, the only other person there, had just recognised the young woman.
"What! Is it you?" she exclaimed. "Where are you off to so early?"
The other laughed heartily with a comical gesture of despair.
"Only fancy," said she, "one cannot go anywhere without meeting somebody one knows! I hope you will not betray me. To-morrow is the birthday of my husband; and, as soon as he went away to business, I set out on my errand. I am going to Auteuil to find a florist who has an orchid which my husband has set his mind on. A surprise, you understand."
The elderly lady nodded her head up and down with tender benevolence. "And how is the baby?" she inquired.
"The baby?" answered the young mother. "Oh! she is going on beautifully. You know I weaned her a week ago. You should see her eating her pap. We are all remarkably well. It is perfectly disgraceful."
She laughed louder than ever, displaying the white teeth between her ruby lips. And Jacques, who had seated himself on her right, his knife in his fist, hidden under his leg, said to himself that he was in a first-rate position to deal the blow. He had only to raise his arm, and turn half round, to have her within reach. But in the Batignolles tunnel, the thought of something she wore round her neck stopped him.
"There is a knot which will inconvenience me," he reflected. "I want to be quite sure."