CHAPTER VI.
CONNUBIAL INFELICITIES.
MADAME DE LUCEVAL had been listening to her friend with rapidly increasing interest and curiosity for several minutes; then, apparently unable to control her emotion any longer, she had thrown herself in Valentine's arms, exclaiming:
"I thank you, my dear, dear friend, I thank you. You have saved me!"
"Good Heavens! Florence, why do you thank me? Explain, I beg of you," said Madame d'Infreville, gazing at her friend with the utmost astonishment.
"You think I have lost my senses, I suppose," responded Madame de Luceval, smiling faintly. "You little know what a great service you have rendered me."
"I?"
"Yes; a great, an immense service," replied Florence, with a strange mixture of emotion, mirth, and mischievousness. "Would you believe it, when you first told me that you had a lover, I envied you as I envied you at the convent when you left it to be married. And then—why should I try to conceal it from you?—Cousin Michel's tastes and his manner of life seemed so entirely congenial to me, that I said to myself: 'This is just my idea of love. That which annoys my poor Valentine so much would, on the contrary, delight me, and I believe I should love to have a Michel myself.'"
"Florence, what are you saying?"
"Let me finish, please. I am not disposed to conceal anything from you, so I may as well tell you that, as I see stormy times ahead, and as my husband is becoming more and more insupportable, I thought it quite possible that I should require consolation for such an ill-assorted union myself at some future day."
"Oh, Florence, take care," exclaimed Valentine, in evident alarm, "if you knew—"