"You can make her friendship a stepping stone."
"Easy stepping stones for little feet—so to speak?"
"You know quite well what I mean. Some day you'll go back to America—"
"Is this a hint or a prediction, or both—"
"Don't be silly, Janet. I'm thinking of your future. Your future in your own country, naturally. Mrs. Jerome is a woman of enormous influence. You know how it is over there. Much gold will wash all guilt away."
"You mean my chequered past?" asked Janet, with a smile.
"Yes," said Cornelia, adding handsomely, "although your affair with Claude Fontaine will probably be quite forgotten by that time. Nobody will remember it."
"Robert Lloyd will!"
Cornelia was up in arms at once. She always was, when Janet mentioned Robert's name.
"What difference does that make? You aren't going to marry him, I suppose?"