The intruder turned her guns upon her husband.
"And you encouraging the little snake. I wonder you don't summon the whole staff in here to plot against me."
Kelly, dismayed and crushed, received the broadside with head bowed.
Cornelia expressed her passionate resentment at the universal treachery and ingratitude. This was her reward for helping girls in the plight that Mazie and Janet were in! She had put all the social and material resources of Paulette's at the disposal of Janet in order that, by a most fortunate marriage, a well-nigh irretrievable blunder might be retrieved. She had herself strained every nerve to help the girl to obliterate her past. And what were her thanks? The unfeeling ingrate acted as if she hardly realized that there was a past to obliterate. She now washed her hands of the whole business. Never again—.
And so on.
Had Harry Kelly been of an inquiring turn of mind he might have ascertained whether or no Cornelia's fury was in part due to being frustrated in the desire to get Janet off her conscience, and in part to being thwarted herself in that game of thwarting others at which Mazie had pronounced her an expert.
As it was, he listened like a Mohammedan prostrated before the muezzin. His silent prayer was that when Cornelia's rage had spent itself, she would not refuse to bestow upon him a little of that affection for which he passionately and hopelessly craved.
III
A few hours later, Janet and Mazie were alone in the gymnasium, the former greatly excited about the news from Robert.
"It's a pity he didn't think of looking you up a little sooner," said Mazie who was in a mood for throwing cold water on enthusiasms that strayed her way.