id Henri to himself, falling into strange
reflections.

Paquita appeared to him occupied by something which was not himself,
like a woman constrained equally by remorse and passion. Perhaps she had
in her heart another love which she alternately remembered and forgot.
In a moment Henri was assailed by a thousand contradictory thoughts.
This girl became a mystery for him; but as he contemplated her with the
scientific attention of the _blase_ man, famished for new pleasures,
like that Eastern king who asked that a pleasure should be created
for him,--a horrible thirst with which great souls are seized,--Henri
recognized in Paquita the richest organization that Nature had ever
deigned to compose for love. The presumptive play of this machinery,
setting aside the soul, would have frightened any other man than Henri;
but he was fascinated by that rich harvest of promised pleasures, by
that constant variety in happiness, the dream of every man, and the
desire of every loving woman too. He was infuriated by the infinite
rendered palpable, and transported into the most excessive raptures
of which the creature is capable. All that he saw in this girl more
distinctly than he had yet seen it, for she let herself be viewed
complacently, happy to be admired. The admiration of De Marsay became
a secret fury, and he unveiled her completely, throwing a glance at her
which the Spaniard understood as though she had been used to receive
such.

"If you are not to be mine, mine only, I will kill you!" he cried.

Hearing this speech, Paquita covered her face in her hands, and cried
naively:

"Holy Virgin! What have I brought upon myself?"

She rose, flung herself down upon the red sofa, and buried her head in
the rags which covered the bosom of her mother, and wept there. The
old woman received her daughter without issuing from her state of
immobility, or displaying any emotion. The mother possessed in the
highest degree that gravity of savage races, the impassiveness of a
statue upon which all remarks are lost. Did she or did she not love her
daughter? Beneath that mask every human emotion might brood--good and
evil; and from this creature all might be expected. Her gaze passed
slowly from her daughter's beautiful hair, which covered her like a
mantle, to the face of Henri, which she considered with an indescribable
curiosity.

She seemed to ask by what fatality he was there, from what caprice
Nature had made so seductive a man.