At dinner time her mother made her slow down.
“Everything’s done,” she announced. “Of course you may have forgotten one or two things, but they aren’t important, and they can be sent on later. Now you take it easy and enjoy dinner for this is the last one you’ll have with your father and me for some weeks. My Janet, but we’re proud of you,” she added, with a happy smile.
“I’m just afraid I won’t make good; that’s the only thing that scares me,” confessed the usually self-reliant Janet. “Everything out there is going to be so strange and as actresses, I’m fearful that Helen and I will be about the worst that ever struck Hollywood.”
“Impossible,” smiled her mother encouragingly, and after Janet mentally reviewed some of the pictures she had seen, she decided that quite likely her mother was right.
Her father arrived home promptly and they passed more than an hour at a leisurely dinner, visiting about a score of different incidents, none of them important in themselves, but all of them important in that they kept them around the dinner table, prolonging their last dinner hour.
Janet’s father finally looked at his watch.
“You’d better dress, dear. The westbound plane leaves Rubio at eleven o’clock and there’s no reason to rush the trip over there.”
He reached into his coat pocket and drew out a small case which he handed to Janet.
“Here’s a little present mother and I want you to have.”
Janet opened the case with hands that shook visibly. Inside was a tiny wrist watch with a thin, silver chain to go around her wrist. It was a beautiful creation of watchmaker’s skill and Janet looked up with just a trace of a tear in her eyes.