She resented this novel sensation. She regarded it with hostility, as though it were some treacherous thread that crossed her homespun integrity. To think that Robert should be its agent! Or could she be mistaken? No. It appeared that even the most charitable of human beings liked to see you in sackcloth and ashes, and looking remorseful, conscience stricken, punished. Well, she had not given Cornelia the satisfaction of looking so, nor Harry Kelly, nor Mazie Ross, nor anybody. And Robert should be no exception.
With defiant vigor she resolved that, as she had no cause to acknowledge remorse, fifty Roberts should not make her acknowledge it.
There was little time that night for an interchange of news. Next morning, the machinery of the Paulette establishment, too big to be suspended for a mere visitor, automatically began its daily grind.
In the course of the day Janet caught fleeting glimpses of Robert, little more. Cornelia kept him under her wing and guarded him as carefully as though he were a crown jewel. She went so far as to relieve Harry Kelly of the half-hour's treat he had promised himself, the treat of showing Robert the sights of the great Maison.
Cornelia not only undertook the ceremony herself; she protracted the ritual far beyond her husband's intentions. Cato's complete mentor, that was what she blandly constituted herself. All that poor Hercules could do was to leave his work once in a while, dash hastily to whatever quarter of the building his wife had conducted Robert, slap the visitor gently on the back, and fling a gloomy monosyllable at him by way of showing his good will. He insisted that Robert was too thin, and trotted out his famous formula.
"You don't breathe deep and down enough, old boy. Fill your lungs and your belly with good fresh wind, or you'll never travel on asphalt."
Cornelia had ceased to shudder at the inelegant word. But Mazie, happening to pop in at the moment, promptly caught it up and used the occasion to favor the two men with a fusillade of flippant, slangy phrases, not forgetting to add several thinly veiled impudences directed at the mistress of the house before the latter had time to expel her.
Cornelia herself suffered so many interruptions that even she had to postpone the confidential talk she had planned to hold with Robert before noon. After lunch, she allowed Robert to take his first stroll through Paris alone, reminding him to come back for an early dinner at half past six. According to her plan, the evening was to be spent in a general confab and merrymaking.
Unluckily, she forgot to announce this plan in so many words, but took it for granted that no move involving Robert would be made that day without first consulting her. Her overconfidence defeated her. In one of the few moments when she was off guard, Janet contrived to get Robert by himself and secured his joyful acceptance of an invitation to a concert in the evening, for which she chanced to have two tickets.
When Cornelia heard of it, she was in turn astounded and furious. Privately, to Harry and Mazie, she described Janet concisely as a selfish beast. In public, she kept herself commendably in hand.