Like an eagle darting on his prey, he took her utterly to him, set her
on his knees, and felt with an indescribable intoxication the
voluptuous pressure of this girl, whose richly developed beauties
softly enveloped him.
"Come to me, Paquita!" he said, in a low voice.
"Speak, speak without fear!" she said. "This retreat was built for
love. No sound can escape from it, so greatly was it desired to guard
avariciously the accents and music of the beloved voice. However loud
should be the cries, they would not be heard without these walls. A
person might be murdered, and his moans would be as vain as if he were
in the midst of the great desert."
"Who has understood jealousy and its needs so well?"
"Never question me as to that," she answered, untying with a gesture
of wonderful sweetness the young man's scarf, doubtless in order the
better to behold his neck.
"Yes, there is the neck I love so well!" she said. "Wouldst thou
please me?"
This interrogation, rendered by the accent almost lascivious, drew De
Marsay from the reverie in which he had been plunged by Paquita's
authoritative refusal to allow him any research as to the unknown
being who hovered like a shadow about them.
"And if I wished to know who reigns here?"
Paquita looked at him trembling.
"It is not I, then?" he said, rising and freeing himself from the
girl, whose head fell backwards. "Where I am, I would be alone."
"Strike, strike! . . ." said the poor slave, a prey to terror.
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