“Still it is rather comic,” suggested the Duchess, “when you think of his mother’s attitude, how she bores us to tears with her Patrie Française, morning, noon and night.”

“Yes, but there’s not only his mother to be thought of, you can’t humbug us like that. There’s a damsel, too, a fly-by-night of the worst type; she has far more influence over him than his mother, and she happens to be a compatriot of Master Dreyfus. She has passed on her state of mind to Robert.”