"When we were at college, Armand and I," or, "Armand used to say to me," or, "Armand wrote to me." And so on. Helen had anticipated another and a more pretentious Alfred. She had told herself that some day, if ever she left the country, she would be obliged to endure in her home the presence of this friend, who would be a hostile judge, and would raise fresh difficulties between her husband and herself. If they were separated for so many reasons the one from the other, her own reserve and Alfred's good nature at least prevented the separation from breaking out in scenes and disputes. What would be the outcome of the intrusion of Alfred's old chum into their home, she almost anxiously asked herself on the occasion of her first visit to Paris. Her rapid interview with Monsieur de Querne had modified the colouring of these fears. He had come to take the Chazels to their hotel, and all three had dined together in a restaurant on the Boulevards. Helen had been surprised by Armand's outward appearance, and by the contrast that he presented to the carelessness of Alfred; but further, the young man's questions, his keen way of looking, the irony that tinted his slightest expressions, together with an indefinable shade of contempt for Alfred, which a woman's acuteness could not but remark, had disconcerted her, causing her a slight shiver of mistrust. She would have wished never to see the man again. She had been unable to refrain from mentioning this antipathy to her husband, and he had replied: "He looks like that, but he is such a good fellow, and then he has been so unfortunate." And he told his wife about Armand's childhood, his guardian's selfishness, his youthful melancholy, and he commiserated him for other mysterious sufferings. "He has not understood life well. He was rich. He has not employed his fine powers. He has said nothing to me, but I always believed that he had experienced a deep passion."