That day marked a very great advance in the friendship of Sylvia Bailey and Paul de Virieu.
Till that day, much as he had talked to her about himself and his life, and the many curious adventures he had had, for he had travelled a great deal, and was a cultivated man, he had very seldom spoken to her of his relations.
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.
Count Paul also told Sylvia of his great-uncle and godfather, the Cardinal, who lived in Italy, and who had—or so his family liked to believe—so nearly become Pope.
Then there were his three old maiden great-aunts, who had all desired to be nuns, but who apparently had not had the courage to do so when it came to the point. They dwelt together in a remote Burgundian château, and they each spent an hour daily in their chapel praying that their dear nephew Paul might be rescued from the evils of play.