How would you interpret ‘vis-à-vis’ in the context?
Dear Mrs. Brown,
This message may startle you, please forgive a bolt from the blue. A telephone call to Mrs. Bittle yesterday confirmed that the former guild of lodgers remains intact, minus myself. (She may thus think it improved vis-à-vis her advertisement of “Only Good People Here.”) And that you could therefore be reached by this address.
How would you interpret ‘vis-à-vis’ in the context?
Thanks! And it’s from The Lacuna by Kingsolver.