"For the better or for the worse?" "For the better _and_ for the worse. But wait and judge for yourself." "Perhaps Cornelia will think me in the way, now that she has a husband to look after." "Cornelia lose sleep over Harry? No, dear girl; don’t worry on that score. And don’t forget that she’ll be glad to do me a favor as well as you. More than one tony customer has come to her shop at my instance. When I tell you that I brought Mrs. R. H. L. Jerome, the mother of the Duchess of Keswick, to her, you’ll admit that I’m a crack barker." "Mr. Pryor, you are my _deus ex machina_. I believe you are every one else’s, too. It must be a hobby with you to help people out of difficulties." "Quite the contrary. It’s a hobby with me to get people into difficulties. The worst of it is, I rarely succeed. I rarely get anybody into difficulties except myself." "Is that true?" "Well, it’s as true of me as it is of certain other people. Sensitive people. People like you, or Charlotte Beecher, or Robert Lloyd." "Oh, Robert never gets himself into difficulties," said Janet, with a trace of bitterness. "He’s too efficient, too perfect." "You do him an injustice, I’m sure. Lloyd merely puts up an exceptionally good front. He stands the strain of existence with skill and courage. So do you, for that matter." "Thanks. But I really haven’t had much to stand." "It seems ample to me." "Not half what I expected. When I went away with Claude I thought the universe would be arrayed against me. I dare say that in the margin of my thoughts there was a dim picture of Janet flinging a glove in the face of a decadent, despotic world." They both smiled. "What happened?" Janet went on, sub-ironically: "A geyser of slander and mockery that spurted up from the newspapers. Nothing else. Nothing diabolic on the world’s side. Nothing heroic on mine." "That’s the rule in these cases, Janet. The Flatbush suburb idea that all the world loves a lover is about as true as the Greenwich Village or Kips Bay idea that all the world hates a free union." "You think both ideas are fictions?" "Not entirely. Modern society has its own way of giving a pat of approval to a regular marriage and a kick of disapproval to a free union. Apart from these casual demonstrations it doesn’t get tremendously excited over what its men and women do as males and females, so long as they pay their rent regularly, refrain from incurring bad debts with tradesmen, and bow the knee (at least in public) to the seventh commandment." "Yes, I soon found that out. Nobody cared a pin whether I was married or not, or whether I was more to be pitied than scorned, provided I wore the proper clothes and told the proper lies." "Nobody?" "Nobody, except Hutchins Burley." "Ah, there’s sure to be a Nemesis!"