She wished she could be candid with Claude and tell him all about the Alsatian. But this was impossible. Claude's capacity for candor was like some people's capacity for alcohol. A little of it went to his head and made him quarrelsome.
She was not like that! She could stand being told any amount of truth (or so she flattered herself). This was why so many people made her their confidante. Having an illusion stripped away might give acute pain, but it never outraged her. Witness her disenchantment with the theory of free love. But Claude, in common with most people, was like the famous prisoner who had spent years in a dungeon and who, when released, was quite overpowered by the fresh air. An unusual supply of truth all but killed the average man.
In this matter, the only one she had ever met like herself was Robert Lloyd. How she had underestimated Robert! Worse, how she had underestimated the strength of her attachment to him! Her partnership with Claude, a partnership of infatuation, had been a weak thing. A breath had made it, and a breath had blown it away. But her partnership with Robert, a partnership of work and mutual interests, had been a bond of adamant. Time could not wither it nor custom stale its precious memory.
She had a passionate longing to write Robert and pour out her heart to him as in the old days of the firm of Barr & Lloyd.
But no. This would never do. In questions of sex, Robert was as fanatic as any average American business man. The scene on the East River pier came back to her vividly. There he had stood like a reincarnation of Cato the Elder (Cornelia's nicknames certainly did hit the bull's-eye at times!) lecturing her and saying:
"I sha'n't have anything to do with free love or with a woman who has had a free lover."
The remembrance caused a wave of bitter feeling to surge through her.
By this time she had reached the Place Rogier. There she took a bus to the office of the American Express Company in order to inquire for mail. The one letter handed to her had been forwarded from Paris. The superscription was in Cornelia's handwriting, and Janet tore open the envelope without delay.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I