ow--come, we will be happy.
You, who have lived with millions don't know how much ten thousand
francs are--but I know. We can live a long time on that, and very
well, too. Then, if we are obliged to sell the useless things--the
horses, carriages, my diamonds, my green cashmere, we can have three
or four times that sum. Thirty thousand francs--it's a fortune!
Think how many happy days--"

The Count de Tremorel shook his head, smilingly. He was ravished;
his vanity was flattered by the heat of the passion which beamed
from the poor girl's eyes. How he was beloved! How he would be
regretted! What a hero the world was about to lose!

"For we will not stay here," Jenny went on, "we will go and conceal
ourselves far from Paris, in a little cottage. Why, on the other
side of Belleville you can get a place surrounded by gardens for
a thousand francs a year. How well off we should be there! You
would never leave me, for I should be jealous--oh, so jealous!
We wouldn't have any servants, and you should see that I know how
to keep house."

Hector said nothing.

"While the money lasts," continued Jenny, "we'll laugh away the
days. When it's all gone, if you are still decided, you will kill
yourself--that is, we will kill ourselves together. But not with
a pistol--No! We'll light a pan of charcoal, sleep in one another's
arms, and that will be the end. They say one doesn't suffer that
way at all."

This idea drew Hector from his torpor, and awoke in him a
recollection which ruffled all his vanity.

Three or four days before, he had read in a paper the account of
the suicide of a cook, who, in a fit of love and despair, had
bravely suffocated himself in his garret. Before dying he had
written a most touching letter to his faithless love. The idea of
killing himself like a cook made him shudder. He saw the
possibility of the horrible comparison. How ridiculous! And
the Count de Tremorel had a wholesome fear of ridicule. To
suffocate himself, at Belleville, with a grisette, how dreadful!
He almost rudely pushed Jenny's arms away, and repulsed her.

"Enough of that sort of thing," said he, in his careless tone.
"What you say, child, is all very pretty, but utterly absurd. A
man of my name dies, and doesn't choke." And taking the bank-notes
from his pocket, where Jenny had slipped them, he threw them on the
table.

"Now, good-by."

He would have gone, but Jenny, red and with glistening eyes, barred
the door with her body.