"Not another word will you get out of me now, Araminta," replied Cornelia, with one of the queer laughs she gave whenever she blocked people’s wishes. However, fearing to weaken the hold she had upon Janet, she added: "I’m too famished to talk. Here we are, landing at last. Come, we’ll get a nice lunch. I know you’re dying to talk about the irresistible Claude. I promise to tell you Lothario’s whole history over our cups of tea." Janet begged to be taken to the Y.W.C.A. Cafeteria, whose good food, self-service and picturesque quarters she had heard Cornelia extol. When they reached the restaurant, they saw a very long line of waiting customers. "This will never do," said Cornelia, disgustedly. And, quite unwilling to sacrifice comfort in the cause of self-service, she dragged the reluctant Janet to a French pastry restaurant on Fifth Avenue. "I _do_ like a waiter and a table cloth," said Cornelia, as she contentedly resigned herself to these dubious luxuries. "And I _don’t_ like to scramble for my napkin and my glass of ice water." "What a strange thing for you to say," said Janet, puzzled. "It sounds as though, in spite of your advanced views, you might at heart be thoroughly in love with conventional ways." "Don’t put such ideas into your head, silly!" said Cornelia, giving a high-pitched, self-conscious, stagy laugh, with which she shut off further personal questions. During lunch, Cornelia contrived to say curiously little about Claude Fontaine, Janet learning hardly anything she did not already know. Claude was heir to the great Fontaine jewelry establishment. He was a social swell. He was very handsome. And he was trying equally hard to dabble in modern paintings and not to dabble in modern amours. His success in both attempts was dubious, according to Cornelia. Particularly in the matter of the amours. He was, of course, the greatest catch of his day. In his own circle, every mother had marked him for her daughter. And it was to escape the conspiracies of matchmakers that he had taken up with the Outlaws in the model tenements. In their unconventional atmosphere, he had hoped to move and breathe more freely. But if every girl in his own set was willing to become his wife, every girl in the Lorillard tenements seemed willing to become his mistress. It appeared that Mazie Ross had been particularly shameless in setting herself to catch Claude. Somehow or other, the conversation pivoted chiefly on Mazie, her selfishness, her neglect of her fair share of the work in flat number fifteen, and her willingness to sell herself. This last was the fault which Cornelia proposed to take most exception to. "I wish I could get rid of her," she said. "Then you could come and live with me, Araminta. It would be like exchanging a room that smelled of last night’s stale flowers for a garden perfumed by fresh roses." *CHAPTER EIGHT* *I*