He suspected weakness in a man who did not know how to break resolutely with popular superstition when it was flattering to himself.
What could Noemi say about this man's character?
What opinion had she formed of him from Jeanne's confidences?
Noemi was embarrassed.

All that Jeanne had told her about him convinced her that Maironi had behaved very badly to her friend, that he had never really loved her and at the same time awoke in Noemi an intellectual curiosity, which, though she struggled against it, was always returning--a curiosity to know if that man would have loved her better than Jeanne.

She replied that Maironi's character was an enigma to her.

And his intellect?
His culture?
She could say nothing concerning either his intellect or his culture, but if such a woman as Jeanne Dessalle had loved him so devotedly, he must certainly be both intelligent and cultured.

And his former religious views?
To this last question Noemi's answer was that from some facts Jeanne had mentioned, from the decisive influence which the religious traditions of his family had had upon him at a crisis in their love, she judged him to have been a Catholic of the old school, not a Catholic like--Here Noemi broke off blushing and smiling.