They recognized in each other qualities which
promised to heighten all the pleasures to be derived from either their
contest or their union. Perhaps both of them, living a life of
adventure, had reached the singular moral condition in which, either
from weariness or in defiance of fate, the mind rejects serious
reflection and flings itself on chance in pursuing an enterprise
precisely because the issues of chance are unknown, and the interest
of expecting them vivid. The moral nature, like the physical nature,
has its abysses into which strong souls love to plunge, risking their
future as gamblers risk their fortune. Mademoiselle de Verneuil and
the young marquis had obtained a revelation of each other's minds as a
consequence of this interview, and their intercourse thus took rapid
strides, for the sympathy of their souls succeeded to that of their
senses. Besides, the more they felt fatally drawn to each other, the
more eager they were to study the secret action of their minds. The
so-called Vicomte de Bauvan, surprised at the seriousness of the
strange girl's ideas, asked himself how she could possibly combine
such acquired knowledge of life with so much youth and freshness. He
thought he discovered an extreme desire to appear chaste in the
modesty and reserve of her attitudes. He suspected her of playing a
part; he questioned the nature of his own pleasure; and ended by
choosing to consider her a clever actress.
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