"Well, you can guess again, my simple Samson."
"Anyhow, they wouldn't have separated in a few weeks unless there had been a fierce blow-out, would they? That's the kind of thing that can hurt a whole lot, a whole lot more than shows on the surface. A sensitive girl like Janet! By thunder, we don't know what she went through, do we? She's not the sort that wears her feelings on her sleeve."
"In other words: 'Gentle Janet meek and mild,'" said Mazie witheringly. "What that girl can't get away with! I'd like to go through a few of her sufferings, I would. I'd like to see yours truly riding horseback every day in the Bois de Boulogne with a plutocrat by my side and a couple of grooms toddling along in back. There's a terrible penance for you! And to think I can't even get a second-hand man to take me to a third-rate cabaret in Montmartre. Me, Mazie Ross, the wickedest girl in the wickedest city in the world. Gee, life is tough!"
"You've seen enough cabarets to be sick of them—and you are sick of them," said Kelly, with unwonted harshness.
"Yes, I suppose my cabaret days are over. But listen to me. There'll be no more skylarking for gentle Janet as soon as Cornelia engineers her marriage with the Alsatian."
"Janet's marriage is none of your business, and none of Cornelia's either."
"You don't say so? Well, you just tell the Empress that yourself."
Mazie, with her hand over her mouth, flung these words at him just as Cornelia entered the gymnasium.
II
With the expression of a tragedy queen Cornelia came in and handed Kelly a telegram.