"Cornelia, you'll admit that I've done all sorts of odd jobs for you without a murmur. But I really don't like to bamboozle anybody into—"
"Bamboozle! Araminta! No one who buys a Paulette frock is bamboozled. Be quite clear about that."
She added, less belligerently, that Mrs. Jerome, though so very rich, had no taste in clothes. Or, more bluntly, had a most execrable taste. She went in for suffrage, feminism, woman's rights, and all that sort of thing. (Here Janet pricked up her ears.) So you might know what to expect. She was, in short, faddy and temperamental. Her purchases were made or not made, as the case might be, because the seller pleased or displeased her. The articles themselves were of quite secondary importance.
"Forgive my curiosity, Cornelia. But you have regiments of customers. Why are you so anxious about just this one?"
"What a question, you babe in the wood! Don't you know who Mrs. Jerome is?"
"I know she's rich and that Mr. Pryor had something to do with her coming here."
"That's not it, child. She's the American mother of the Duchess of Keswick. And the Duchess— Well, it's Madge and Mary between her and the Queen of England. Think, Araminta, what a feather in our cap, if we get the patronage of the Duchess of Keswick, and a Paulette frock is worn at the Court of St. James! It's the chance of a lifetime. You won't disappoint me, dear?"
"No. We'll make it Madge and Paulette and Mary. When is this dowager Mrs. Jerome expected?"
"That's her carriage now, or I'm very much mistaken," said Cornelia, all agog. "She hardly ever uses a motor. It's so ordinary."
In some amazement Janet watched her old friend going out to do the honors in the reception room. What a transformation a short year had effected in the Cornelia of the Lorillard tenements! Bohemianism, outlawry, and the one-piece dresses of Kips Bay seemed remoter than Mars. Cornelia was attired in the height of fashion, her cheeks were delicately touched up, her hair was elaborately coiffured.