Now, with a steady hand, she carried that precept into practice.  It might make a rent in Sally’s heart; it might bring separation between them; but she did not hesitate at that.  The cause of justice and the desire for truth have no need of sentiment.

“And how long do you think that love is going to last?” she asked.

“Always; why not?”

“With you, perhaps; but with him?”

Sally looked out of the window across the river.  The night that Mr. Arthur had proposed to her—­offering her marriage—­danced flauntingly across her memory.  He had been ready to bind himself to her for the rest of his life.  She let the memory go on, with its mincing steps, back into the dreary darkness of the river from whence it had come; but she said nothing.

“You can’t answer for him?” suggested Janet.

“Yes, I can,” she replied impetuously.  “Why not always with him?  He’ll never marry.  He’s always said so.”

“Yes, but you didn’t answer at once.  Sally—­” Janet put a hand on her shoulder, “I believe you think you’re as good as married.  The way you answered Mrs. Thing-um-i-bob downstairs—­Mrs. Hewson—­when she asked you, what we’d both agreed to tell her—­that made me begin to wonder.  But you’re not married, Sally.  He’s only your master—­that’s all, and if I were you, I’d see that I got 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.”