When the two lovers glanced at one
another, Paquita seemed ashamed, she dropped her eyes lest she should
meet the eyes of Henri, but her gaze sank lower to fasten on the feet
and form of him whom women, before the Revolution, called _their
conqueror_.
"I am determined to make this girl my mistress," said Henri to
himself.
As he followed her along the terrace, in the direction of the Place
Louis XV., he caught sight of the aged Marquis de San-Real, who was
walking on the arm of his valet, stepping with all the precautions due
to gout and decrepitude. Dona Concha, who distrusted Henri, made
Paquita pass between herself and the old man.
"Oh, for you," said De Marsay to himself, casting a glance of disdain
upon the duenna, "if one cannot make you capitulate, with a little
opium one can make you sleep. We know mythology and the fable of
Argus."
Before entering the carriage, the golden-eyed girl exchanged certain
glances with her lover, of which the meaning was unmistakable and
which enchanted Henri, but one of them was surprised by the duenna;
she said a few rapid words to Paquita, who threw herself into the
_coupe_ with an air of desperation. For some days Paquita did not
appear in the Tuileries. Laurent, who by his master's orders was on
watch by the hotel, learned from the neighbors that neither the two
women nor the aged marquis had been abroad since the day upon which
the duenna had surprised a glance between the young girl in her charge
and Henri.
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