For a moment Valerie felt inclined to open her oppressed and suffering heart to this sweet, matronly friend, and tell her the whole, bitter truth, and seek her wise counsel; but again the want of moral courage, which had always been so fatal to her welfare, sealed her lips.
"Well," said Lady C., after a short pause for that answer that never came, "I will not press the question. 'The heart knoweth its own bitterness.'"
"Yes," murmured Valerie, in a very low voice. Then, not to seem indifferent or unsocial, and also, if the truth must be told of her, to gratify a gnawing curiosity, she inquired:
"How goes the expected marriage of your niece, madame?"
"I cannot tell you dear. I have been daily expecting some communication on the subject from de Volaski: but as yet he has made none. After coming to Paris for the purpose, (for of course his office in the embassy is a mere sinecure and a plausible excuse,) he betrays the bashfulness of a girl in pressing his suit; but some men, some of the best and purest of men, are just that way—in love affairs as shy women," said her ladyship.
Valerie smiled bitterly. She thought she understood the reason why the Count de Volaski was in no hurry to press the suit for marriage with a dreaming girl, to whom he had been arbitrarily contracted when he was a boy of fifteen, and she a child of twelve.
"I shall, however, write again to her father. I will not have my sister's daughter wasting her youth in a convent, while waiting for a tardy suitor."
Valerie smiled again, and then arose to take her leave.
Lady C. kissed her affectionately, and promised soon to visit her at the Hotel de la Motte.
"But—how long will you remain there?" inquired her ladyship.