She seemed to ask by what fatality he was there, from what caprice
Nature had made so seductive a man.
"These women are making sport of me," said Henri to himself.
At that moment Paquita raised her head, cast at him one of those looks
which reach the very soul and consume it. So beautiful seemed she that
he swore he would possess such a treasure of beauty.
"My Paquita! Be mine!"
"Wouldst thou kill me?" she said fearfully, palpitating and anxious,
but drawn towards him by an inexplicable force.
"Kill thee--I!" he said, smiling.
Paquita uttered a cry of alarm, said a word to the old woman, who
authoritatively seized Henri's hand and that of her daughter. She
gazed at them for a long time, and then released them, wagging her
head in a fashion horribly significant.
"Be mine--this evening, this moment; follow me, do not leave me! It
must be, Paquita! Dost thou love me? Come!"
In a moment he had poured out a thousand foolish words to her, with
the rapidity of a torrent coursing between the rocks, and repeating
the same sound in a thousand different forms.
"It is the same voice!" said Paquita, in a melancholy voice, which De
Marsay could not overhear, "and the same ardor," she added. "So be
it--yes," she said, with an abandonment of passion which no words can
describe. "Yes; but not to-night. To-night Adolphe, I gave too little
opium to La Concha. She might wake up, and I should be lost. At this
moment the whole household believes me to be asleep in my room.
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