"You will not remember this against me?" she asked; "promise me that
you will not."
"Ah! madame, I am incapable of doing so," he said. She took his hand
and held it to her heart, a movement full of grace that expressed her
deep gratitude.
"I am free and happy once more, thanks to you," she said. "Oh! I have
felt lately as if I were in the grasp of an iron hand. But after this
I mean to live simply and to spend nothing. You will think me just as
pretty, will you not, my friend? Keep this," she went on, as she took
only six of the banknotes. "In conscience I owe you a thousand crowns,
for I really ought to go halves with you."
Eugene's maiden conscience resisted; but when the Baroness said, "I am
bound to look on you as an accomplice or as an enemy," he took the
money.
"It shall be a last stake in reserve," he said, "in case of
misfortune."
"That was what I was dreading to hear," she cried, turning pale. "Oh,
if you would that I should be anything to you, swear to me that you
will never re-enter a gaming-house. Great Heaven! that I should
corrupt you! I should die of sorrow!"
They had reached the Rue Saint-Lazare by this time.
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