"Pardon the explosion, Cornelia. But why must this man of all men be the presiding genius of your room?" "You know the reason very well, Robert." "Unfortunately, yes. You won’t let your friends forget it. By keeping this portrait in evidence, you actually force the reason on people’s attention. Do take him down, Cornelia, swathe him in incense, and lay him away amongst your most cherished souvenirs. Replace him, if you must replace him, with a picture of Saint Francis or Savonarola." She bristled up under his ironic words. Her craving for admiration vanished in her resentment of disapproval. "I am proud to have known Percival Houghton, and to have been his friend. Thanks for your recommendation, though I’m not aware of having asked for it." "Don’t be angry. You must own that you constantly remind your visitors of this Houghton affair, though what advantage it is to your position and influence, Heaven only knows. Let sleeping dogs lie. Believe me, Cornelia, half the tragedies in life result from forgetting what we ought to remember; the other half from remembering what we ought to forget." "I’m not ashamed of the Houghton affair, as you call it," said Cornelia coldly. "Why should I be? It was one of those rare friendships that are quite beyond the perception of vulgar-minded, low-thoughted souls. What other people think of it concerns me very little." She really believed this, although it was very wide of the mark. "I know," she went on melodramatically, "of the spiteful gossip behind my back. I know of the scarlet colors in which my relations with Percival Houghton are painted by my enemies. Let them declaim against me! To a few real friends I have told the truth. They believe me, and that is all I ask." She had in fact taken more than one friend into her confidence. It was a common saying in the Lorillard tenements that the token of admission to Cornelia’s inner circle was the almost sacramental rite of receiving her account of the Houghton episode. The corner stone of this account—the supreme article of faith!—was the point that she and Percival Houghton had rigorously abstained from sexual intimacy throughout their voyage together in the same stateroom. Not from moral scruples, be it noted, but from a desire to prove to the world that free love and the severest tax on self-restraint were perfectly compatible. Cornelia held passionately to the delusion that her account was accepted in every jot and tittle. Robert knew that behind her back, most of her friends greeted it with a cynical smile and pronounced it a pardonable but much too elaborate invention. When some one referred to Cornelia’s assertion that the voyage to England had involved no infraction of the seventh commandment, the women would say contemptuously: "If you’re going to be killed for a lamb, you might as well be killed for a sheep." The men, more vulgarly, would exclaim: "What a shame if they wasted a chance like that!"