"I'm glad you do. We were very good pals, weren't we?"
"Yes, and I hope we still are. Anyhow, I want to speak of something I heard about you from Mark Pryor."
"What was that?"
"Pryor seems to have kept in touch with Cornelia right along. You know Pryor."
"Not a sparrow falleth but his eye doth see," she quoted.
"Exactly. He has been keeping tabs on this rich Alsatian. And, by the way, I ought to mention that he repeated to me what you told him about Monsieur St. Hilaire."
"That's a nice way to treat my confidence," said Janet, seriously annoyed. "Pryor of all people. And I took him to be the only original human clam!"
"Well, I think he was fully justified—"
"In what way, I'd like to ask?"
"Please don't make me go into that now, Janet. The thing I'm driving at is this. Pryor heard that you were on the point of—of forming a free alliance with this Alsatian gentleman. Chiefly to escape Cornelia and this horrible business of clothes."