A young attaché, who was thoroughly acquainted with what went on at the court of King Victor Emmanuel, was still more explicit. According to him, whatever influence the Countess still retained in Italy was due to an old connection with a very highly placed personage there, and he hinted that she would not have left Turin had it not been for a terrible scandal into the details of which he would not enter. Rougon, whose interest in the matter was increasing with the extent of his inquiries, now went to the police authorities, but they could give him no precise information. Their entries relating to the two foreigners simply described them as women who kept up a great show without any proof that they were really in possession of a substantial fortune. They asserted that they had property in Piedmont; but, as a matter of fact, there were sudden breaks in their life of luxury, during which they abruptly disappeared, only to reappear shortly afterwards in fresh splendour. Briefly, all that the police could say was that they really knew nothing about them and would prefer to know nothing. At the same time, it was certain that the women associated with the best society, and that their house was looked upon as neutral ground, where Clorinde's eccentricities were tolerated and excused on account of her being a foreigner. And so Rougon at last made up his mind to see the ladies. By the time he had paid his third visit, the great man's curiosity with respect to them had still further increased. He was of a cold dispassionate nature which was not easily stirred into life. What first attracted him in Clorinde was the mystery surrounding her, the story of a past-away life and the yearning for a new existence which he could read in the depths of her big goddess-like eyes. He had heard disgraceful scandal about her--an early love-affair with a coachman, and a subsequent connection with a banker who had presented her with the little house in the Champs Élysées. However, every now and then she seemed to him so child-like that he doubted the truth of what he had been told, and again and again essayed to find out the secret of this strange girl, who became to him a living enigma, the solution of which interested him as much as some intricate political problem. Until then he had felt a scornful disdain for women, and the first one who excited his interest was certainly as singular and complicated a being as could be imagined.