"She’s been much in demand. There was the gypsy tent, remember. When it comes to innocent credulity, a radical’s capacity is just as great as any honest man’s. So what with examining scores of palms and eluding Hutchins Burley, Janet might have died from exhaustion but for Claude’s gallant interference." "Just like Claude’s knight-errantry," she said. "He has always had a passion for novelties." "And the novelties have usually returned the passion!" Cornelia felt a twinge of jealousy. But as Janet had evidently not been very attentive to Robert, and had even hurt his feelings, she was hardly conscious of the emotion. "Janet is young, impressionable and fresh from a Puritan home," she said, with a languid air of detachment. "Small wonder if Lothario’s dash and distinction have captivated her." They fell to talking of Janet’s history, and Robert spoke of the surprising change in her sphere of interests. "A month ago she was demure enough to have stood model for the heroine of _Miles Standish_. She could hardly be induced to drink at a soda-water fountain on a Sunday. Now she is full of ’equal pay for equal work.’ And she appears to have a voice as well as a vote. I’m told that she reads the _Liberator_ and that she broke the last Sabbath by attending a meeting of the new Labor Party in Madison Square Garden." "She’s been under my wing for several weeks," said Cornelia, proudly. *III* Cornelia’s assumption that she was entirely responsible for the change in Janet’s outlook on life was without warrant. Yet she was so self-satisfied as scarcely to suspect that Robert had anything to do with the matter; and it was interest in the man rather than curiosity about the girl that caused her to question him about his previous acquaintance with Janet. She learnt that Robert’s mother was not a very distant cousin of Mrs. Barr, and that both ladies had spent their girlhood in the same Connecticut town, where they had been friends until Mrs. Lloyd married and went out West. When Robert left Los Angeles, he bore this relationship in mind and, on the strength of it, paid his respects to the Barrs soon after settling in New York. Cornelia inferred that the young man’s acquaintance with the Barrs had continued on a very superficial footing. Robert knew better than to undeceive her. As a matter of fact, he had repeated his visits to the Barr household for the simple reason that there had sprung up between himself and Janet a mental fellowship which the hostility of her mother, the timid aloofness of her father and the envy of her sister had been able to obstruct but not to destroy.