That evening she mentioned his name to her godfather, the Duc de Noira, and asked him if he knew it. The Duc, a Legitimist, a recluse, and a man of strong prejudices, answered at once.
'Of course I know it; he is one of us, and he has made a political position for himself within the last year.'
'Do you know him personally?'
'No, I do not. I see no one, as you are aware; I live in greater retirement than ever. But he bears an honourable name, and though I believe that, until lately, he was but a flâneur, he has taken a decided part this session, and he is a very great acquisition to the true cause.'
'It is surely very sudden, his change of front?'
'What change? He took no part in politics that ever I heard of; it is taken for granted that a Marquis de Sabran is loyal to his sole legitimate sovereign. I believe he never thought of public life; but they tell me that he returned from some long absence last autumn, an altered and much graver man. Then one of the deputies for his department died, and he was elected for the vacancy with no opposition.'
The Duc de Noira proceeded to speak of the political aspects of the time, and said no more.
Involuntarily, as she drove through the avenues of the Bois de Boulogne, she thought of the intuitive comprehension, the half-uttered sympathy, the interchange of ideas, à demi-mots, which had made the companionship of Sabran so welcome to her in the previous summer. They had not always agreed, she often had not even approved him; but they had always understood one another, they had never needed to explain. She was startled to realise how much and how vividly she regretted him.
'If one could only be sure of his sincerity,' she thought, 'there would be few men living who would equal him.'
She did not know why she doubted his sincerity. Some natures have keen instincts like dogs. She regretted to doubt it; but the change in him seemed to her too rapid to be one of conviction. Yet the homage in it to herself was delicate and subtle. She would not have been a woman had it not touched her, and she was too honest with herself not to frankly admit in her own thoughts that she might very well have inspired a sentiment which would go far to change a nature which it entered and subdued. Many men had loved her; why not he?