For Janet to insinuate that she had been taken in, was a trifle strong. If she had been duped at all, she was self-duped. And was this likely? The curve of contempt in Cornelia's lips indicated her belief to the contrary. There was such a thing as carrying a pose of artless inexperience too far. And what did Janet mean by all this talk of casting Claude off? Casting Claude off, indeed! What was she really up to?
Harry Kelly, having finished the letter, now handed it back.
"Janet's getting a bit flighty," he remarked with true male cynicism. "Seems to me Claude has got somebody else on a string."
Cornelia gave a scornful laugh.
"Don't be an idiot, Hercules," she said. "More likely, Janet has got somebody else on a string."
Kelly held his peace. Like King Lear's daughter, he adored and was silent: his love was mightier than his tongue.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I
By the time Cornelia's answer reached Paris, Claude had taken Janet to Brussels. The immediate cause of this move was a stringency in Claude's funds. A brief and somewhat acrid correspondence between father and son had followed hard on the latter's international adventure. After much shilly-shallying on Claude's part, Mr. Fontaine had laid down the terms on which alone he proposed to continue polite relations.
Mr. Fontaine proceeded on the theory that in some cases the most effective sort of moral force is material force. He did not demand that Claude abandon Janet, although this was the goal of his desire. He simply made it emphatic that until his son did leave Janet, the old days of independence coupled with generous financial supplies were over.