Her mind has become somehow more angular, it was all much softer in the juvenile great lady, but after all, young or old, men or women, what can you expect, all these people belong to a different race, one can’t have a thousand years of feudalism in one’s blood with impunity. Naturally they imagine that it counts for nothing in their opinions.” “All the same, Robert de Saint-Loup is a Dreyfusard.” “Ah! So much the better, all the more as you know that his mother is extremely ‘anti.’ I had heard that he was, but I wasn’t certain of it. That gives me a great deal of pleasure. It doesn’t surprise me, he’s highly intelligent. It’s a great thing, that is.”