"And that is why a person of my character would save him. You know about extremes. If I could love any one, which now, alas! is totally impossible, I should certainly fancy a man who is serious and cold. Dear me! Alas! was not that the temperament of my poor husband? Well, his gravity tempered my vivacity, and my liveliness let sunshine into his melancholy. That was his way of putting it, and how often he would mention it! He had never been in love before he met me, and he also had precisely this distaste for marriage. The first time he saw me, he was a little afraid of my frivolity; but all at once he saw that I was necessary to his life, because this apparent thoughtlessness, which you know does n't hinder one from having a good heart, passed into his soul like a light, like a balm. These were his very words, poor dear man! There! stop! let us not talk about people who marry. It makes me feel too keenly that I am alone forever!" Léonie found means to touch upon the subject so often and under so many different forms, with so much tact under an air of innocence, with so many civilities clothed in apparent indifference, that the idea entered the mind of the Marchioness almost without her being conscious of it, and when Madame d'Arglade saw she was not disposed to reject it absolutely in the proper time and place, she began a direct attack on M. de Villemer with the same cunning, the same charming heedlessness, the same silence of conjugal despair, the same frank insinuations, bringing about the whole and carrying it on before the eyes of Caroline, about whom she did not trouble herself at all. But the chatter of Madame d'Arglade was disagreeable to the Marquis; and, if she had never found this out, it was only because she had never provoked him into taking any notice of her whatever. Far from being the inexperienced savage he was supposed to be, he had a very fine tact with regard to women; so, at the first assault which Léonie made, he understood her designs, perceived all her intrigues, and made her feel this so thoroughly that she was wounded to the very heart. From that time she opened her eyes, and, in a thousand delicate indications detected the boundless love Mlle de Saint-Geneix had inspired in the Marquis. She rejoiced over this greatly: she thought it was in her power to revenge herself, and she waited for the right moment.