Emmanuelle de Maupassant quotes:

She is drawn to the river, and all its hideous, dead-eyed treasures: rot-bloated cats, and cold-meat corpses of unwanted infants, eels plucking at their tender fingers and toes.

He is a man-beast, carnivore incarnate, motivated by carnal avarice and wearing only the mask of civility. She could sip from that cup. It is his presumption that deters her: his belief that he has already caught Maud in his paw.