To Janet's ears, this rigmarole was now so stale as no longer to invite even remonstrance. But to declaim it to a comparative outsider! And to embroider it with all sorts of sticky innuendoes! Janet grew hot and cold by turns. So this was how one's name was buffeted about after an episode like hers with Claude Fontaine! If one's best friends talked this way behind one's back, what might not less intimate associates say or take for granted?
She had tried to steel herself against inevitable collisions with public opinion; yet this first impact, though only an oblique one, had given her a much nastier shock than any she had anticipated.
M. St. Hilaire, the Chateau in Normandy, the prestige that was to cover a multitude of past sins—Cornelia was going it again!
Mrs. Jerome replied that these matters were none of her affair. She needed Janet and she believed Janet needed her. Surely, the decision lay with the young woman herself?
While Janet was still debating whether or not she should walk straight in and interrupt, Cornelia shifted the attack, her diplomatic allusions to Janet's love affair being replaced by blunter speech. She effected the change with a great show of diffidence and hesitation. Her sense of loyalty alike to her friend and to Mrs. Jerome obliged her, etc.—Claude Fontaine, the beau ideal of the Junior smart set, etc.—the transatlantic honeymoon to which the newspaper troubadours had given a far-flung notoriety, etc.—But doubtless Mrs. Jerome recalled these particulars well enough?
Came the tart rejoinder:
"No, I never do read newspaper scandal! The fact is, when I'm not gambling in Paulette frocks, I'm a very busy woman. If it wasn't for the Duchess, the Magpie Club in Mayfair would make short work of me. But the Duchess reads me some of the necessary tittle-tattle at breakfast so as to keep me au fait. She's a great newspaper fan, is the Duchess."
When Janet finally opened the door, walked in, and electrified the room, Cornelia had just been sweetly remarking:
"But about the managership of this house, a house for unattached mothers—widows and feminist women I presume?—about such projects public curiosity is simply insatiable,' isn't it? Do you really think that Janet is exactly the person for such a delicate position—?"
Ignoring Cornelia and her innuendo, Janet spoke directly to Mrs. Jerome.