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 eyes.
"You don't understand the proportion of things," she said slowly. "You don't realize the comparative ratio of one thing to another. Any man can give happiness to a woman who loves him—but that's no bargain! He merely gives her happiness by taking his own. Do you call that a fair exchange? To you, drunk with romance, perhaps it is. But in reality it's robbery. He has to pay higher for his pleasures than that. Why, even the women in the streets, he pays and takes all risks inclusive? Then what do you think he owes a woman like you? Why, in the name of God, can't you sweep all this mist away, that's in front of your eyes, and see it as a transaction? Sign it, seal it, make a deed of it, and then forget it if you like; but insure yourself against the worst if it should ever come."
To suppose that this reasoning would appeal to Sally, to expect that she would assimilate Janet's point of view, adopt Janet's attitude of mind, is beyond all imagination. The whole aspect that Janet had revealed, depressed her, weighed—a heavy drag—upon her spirits. But she was not convinced.
To call things by their names—albeit that language has been evolved these many thousands of years, and during all that time human beings have sat in the dust and worked and played with its cunning symbols—is no easy matter. For the evolution of language has achieved two ends, and the perfection of it has accomplished the one as thoroughly as it has the other. With language we give expression of our feelings; but also with language we have learnt to hide feelings, cloak thoughts, and dissemble before the very eyes that know us best. Janet, demanding the truth in all things, seeking in words the very highest aim of the words themselves, was a far higher type than Sally.