But I can quite understand him falling in love with Carlotta.

The hereditary qualities are there, though they have been forced into the channel of sex, and become a sort of diabolical witchery whereof I am not quite sure whether she is conscious.

For all that, I don't think she can have a soul.
I have made up my mind that she hasn't, and I don't like having my convictions disturbed.
Until I saw her perched in the corner of the sofa, with her legs tucked up under her, and the light playing a game of magic amid the reds and golds and browns of her hair, while she cheerily discoursed to us of Hamdi's villainy, I never noticed the dull decorum of this room.

I was struck with the decorative value of mere woman.
I must break myself of the habit of wandering off on a meditative tangent to the circle of conversation.

I was brought back by hearing Pasquale say: "So you're going to marry an Englishman.