"You own mother and father hate each other, Janet," she pointed out. "The result is the cat-and-dog, bite-one-another's-head-off relationship that passes for family life in your home. Do you see?";
Janet saw, or thought she saw. Anything that could plausibly be shown to be responsible for family life among the Barrs was sure to receive her cordial detestation. Cornelia, certain of her auditor's sympathy, continued her story. Percival Houghton's solution of the difficulty caused by his rash attachment was a highly quixotic one. He proposed that Cornelia accompany him to England, so that they might together lay the facts before his wife and beg her to sue for a divorce after he had furnished her with funds and with technical grounds for the suit. They were to be open and aboveboard in urging the right of true lovers to be free from all the shackles of law and tradition. His wife was not ungenerous, he declared. Moreover, she had never really loved him; and he persuaded himself and Cornelia that, face to face with an overwhelming passion, she would readily consent to an act that was to liberate three lives.
This, he insisted was the only honorable course to pursue. It had the precedent of such great names as Ruskin and Millais. Besides it was the only course that would not seriously affect his career or completely cut him off from his children.
What could Cornelia do but yield? He engaged passage to England for two, and—she emphasized this detail again and again—though they occupied the same stateroom, their union was a union of two souls and nothing more.
Without giving Janet time to grasp the logic of this behavior or of its explanation, she continued:
"Percival said it behooved us to show that free love could rise above the lustful impulses of the flesh. We were to come to each other clean, so as not to do the cause of free love an injury."
England had been the Paradise of her hopes, but it proved their sepulchre. Scarcely had they docked in the Mersey when reporters representing news associations accosted them for information about their "elopement." The news had been cabled from New York, where they were featured as "elective affinities." In London, too, they found themselves headliners in the yellow journals. Needless to say, the most extreme construction was put on their journey together. And the escapade of "affinity Houghton" became an international sensation.
"How did it leak out, Cornelia?" exclaimed Janet. "Had you told anyone you were going together?
"Not a soul. But my connection with a newspaper was fatal. A woman journalist is subject to more gossip than an actress. Every time she's seen with a new man, she's reported to have ensnared a new lover."
As a result of this glaring notoriety, Cornelia went on, Houghton's manner toward her underwent a radical change. He remained kind and courteous, but his manner grew cool. He urged one pretext after another for postponing what was to have been a historic interview with his wife. In London he took her to a hotel and left her there alone.