But to-day he told her a great deal about them, and she found herself
taking a very keen, intimate interest in this group of French people whom
she had never seen--whom, perhaps, with one exception, she never would
see.
How unlike English folk they must be--these relations of Count Paul! For
the matter of that, how unlike any people Sylvia had ever seen or heard
of.
First, he told her of the sweet-natured, pious young duchess who was to
be her hostess on the morrow--the sister whom Paul loved so dearly, and
to whom he owed so much.
Then he described, in less kindly terms, her proud narrow-minded, if
generous, husband, the French duke who still lived--thanks to the
fact that his grandmother had been the daughter of a great Russian
banker--much as must have lived the nobles in the Middle Ages--apart,
that is, from everything that would remind him that there was anything
in the world of which he disapproved or which he disliked.
The Duc d'Eglemont ignored the fact that France was a Republic; he still
talked of "the King," and went periodically into waiting on the Duke of
Orleans.
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