"We will shut her up for a day or two, your duenna."

"So, we shall have Paquita!" said Laurent, rubbing his hands.

"Rascal!" answered Henri, "I shall condemn you to the Concha, if you
carry your impudence so far as to speak so of a woman before she has
become mine. . . . Turn your thoughts to dressing me, I am going out."

Henri remained for a moment plunged in joyous reflections. Let us say
it to the praise of women, he obtained all those whom he deigned to
desire. And what could one think of a woman, having no lover, who
should have known how to resist a young man armed with beauty which is
the intelligence of the body, with intelligence which is a grace of
the soul, armed with moral force and fortune, which are the only two
real powers? Yet, in triumphing with such ease, De Marsay was bound to
grow weary of his triumphs; thus, for about two years he had grown
very weary indeed. And diving deep into the sea of pleasures he
brought back more grit than pearls. Thus had he come, like potentates,
to implore of Chance some obstacle to surmount, some enterprise which
should ask the employment of his dormant moral and physical strength.
Although Paquita Valdes presented him with a marvelous concentration
of perfections which he had only yet enjoyed in detail, the attraction
of passion was almost _nil_ with him. Constant satiety had weakened in
his heart the sentiment of love. Like old men and people
disillusioned, he had no longer anything but extravagant caprices,
ruinous tastes, fantasies, which, once satisfied, left no pleasant
memory in his heart. Amongst young people love is the finest of the
emotions, it makes the life of the soul blossom, it nourishes by its
solar power the finest inspirations and their great thoughts; the