Saint-Loup came to Paris for a few hours only. He came with assurances that he had had no opportunity of mentioning me to his cousin. “She’s not being at all nice just now, Oriane isn’t,” he explained, with innocent self-betrayal. “She’s not my old Oriane any longer, they’ve gone and changed her. I assure you, it’s not worth while bothering your head about her. You pay her far too great a compliment. You wouldn’t care to meet my cousin Poictiers?” he went on, without stopping to reflect that this could not possibly give me any pleasure. “Quite an intelligent young woman, she is; you’ld like her. She’s married to my cousin, the Duc de Poictiers, who is a good fellow, but a bit slow for her. I’ve told her about you. She said I was to bring you to see her. She’s much better looking than Oriane, and younger, too. Really a nice person, don’t you know, really a good sort.” These were expressions recently—and all the more ardently—taken up by Robert, which meant that the person in question had a delicate nature. “I don’t go so far as to say she’s a Dreyfusard, you must remember the sort of people she lives among; still, she did say to me: ‘If he is innocent, how ghastly for him to be shut up on the Devil’s Isle.’ You see what I mean, don’t you? And then she’s the sort of woman who does a tremendous lot for her old governesses; she’s given orders that they’re never to be sent in by the servants’ stair, when they come to the house. She’s a very good sort, I assure you. The real reason why Oriane doesn’t like her is that she feels she’s the cleverer of the two.”