"Hush! Here we are at the station. Now good-night."
She had been just long enough in the metropolis to get over the wonder of it, then over the disgust of it, for there is always reaction, and to take the philosophical view that is best. Her music and little else really interested her. She had her wagon hitched to the star of a musical career and she was willing to work and sacrifice everything for its sake.
Hartley Howard had insisted that his love for her counted for more than music, and it had been a long, hard fight to convince herself that he was wrong. She had asked her sister about him that night so indifferently that even Sally's sharp eyes were deceived. "He's doing pretty well, Janet," she had answered. "They say he's going with Mary Porter, but I don't know for sure. Think how funny it will be someday, sister, when you're away up in grand opera and just home from the courts of Europe to have Hartley present you to Mary, fat and forty, and with a family of six to cook and sew for!" She had meant it kindly, for she thought Janet was looking a blue white and peaked, but her words had brought no answering smile.
"It seems a good piece ahead," she said.
Janet.
She thought it all over now in the car and she was very close to the line which separates will from weakness. Was she getting homesick? Then she thought of the European courts and of darning stockings and cooking. The brave color came back to her cheeks and she sat very erect. She had changed.  On a career and she was going to make good. 