my
settlement. He might want to leave you any day."

Sally moved herself free of the detaining hand and laughed, with a
bitter absence of merriment.

"That shows how little you understand," she said. "He's told me over
and over again that he never thought he would find any one who fitted
in so perfectly to his life as I do."

"Most any pretty woman fits into a man's life when he wants, and so
long as he wants her," Janet remarked. "It's only women like
myself--ugly little devils like me--who have to meet the difficulty
of finding a niche that'll hold them for more than the latter part
of an afternoon before the lights are turned up. You fit into his
life--of course you do. I'm not suggesting that you don't. I'm only
questioning how long you're going to do it--only trying to remind
you that it won't be for always. Why will you insist on being so
romantic? Why can't you look at life through a plain sheet of
glass--if you must look at it through something--instead of choosing
the red and the yellow and the purples--anything but the plain, the
untinted reality. Go and get your settlement. Make him put it in black
and white, and shove his name down at the bottom. Then you can look
at it any way you like--forget about it--sit and nurse your romance
all day long if you want to; but make sure of the reality first. He'll
think twice as much of you if you do."

"You think that," said Sally. "You believe he'd think twice as much
of me if I came to him in a mercenary spirit like that? And I thought
you knew something about men."

"Mercenary!" Janet threw her head back and laughed. "You'd have to
ask for a good deal more than that to seem mercenary, my dear child.
You! Why, you've worked two years and you never knew your own value
all that time. I've seen your finger-nails worn square on that old
typewriter you used to pound; but you never dreamed of thinking that
you were worth more than your twenty-five or your twenty-seven
shillings a week, however much they made you stay at that office
overtime. Mercenary's about the last word that could be applied to
you. I don't want to worry the life out of you, or make you miserable,
but when I see you rushing along--giving, giving, always giving, with
both hands--"

"I'm not only giving," Sally exclaimed. "Do you think I get nothing
in return? I've never been made so happy in my life before--never!
Is that receiving nothing for what I give?"

Janet looked at her, steadying her eye