"Janet didn't know those St. Hilaires were coming this morning," she finally volunteered. "But you can gamble on it that Cornelia knew. When my fine gentleman got off his prancing horse and marched into the reception room clanking spurs and all, Corny was right there on the job in her softest, sweetest tone. My! butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. And all the time Janet hangs in the background, saying she's too busy to go out, and looking as stubborn as a mule. When gentle Janet gets that stubborn expression, it means: You can move the Woolworth Building, but you can't move me!"
"Then why in thunder did she go?"
"Because that St. Hilaire kid got busy with her. A pretty little kid, a regular father's darling, the kind that coos away like a turtledove till she gets everything she wants and a tidy slice of the moon extra. Well, she draped herself pathetically around Janet—all that heartstring stuff—and Janet, like any fool of a man, fell for the pathos."
"You can't persuade me that Janet didn't want to go," said Kelly, gloomily.
"I won't try to, then. Just the same, she didn't. That's the weird part of it."
"What's weird about it?"
"Why, she doesn't want to marry that millionaire and he's crazy to get her. Gee, some people have all the luck."
"If she doesn't want him, where's the luck?" said Kelly, with the logic of simplicity.
"Harry, don't be a nut. Here's the ABC of it. All my love affairs were on the q.t., though I say it that shouldn't. Everything respectable and under cover. Nobody rattled my adventures in the ears of the public, did they? Yet, from the way everybody points the finger of scorn at me, you'd think I produced the whole Venusburg show and ran it single-handed. Now look at Janet. She hops off with young Claude Fontaine right under the eyes of the moving-picture brigade. The front pages of all the leading papers give her a full week's publicity. She boards with Claude for a month or two, carefully omitting even the formality of a fake wedding ring. She lives in sin! But everybody shies at using 'them crooel woids.' And what are the wages of sin? A couple of millionaires pining away on her doorstep and Sousa's band a-playing at her feet. And she's no great beauty at that."
"Quit it, Mazie. What's the good of fooling yourself with the idea that Janet hasn't had her troubles. My guess is that Claude threw her overboard."