I won't give up my career.

I must go on working--in other words, singing--whether I marry him or not.

I don't call it singing, in my sense of the word, to sing 'The Banks of Allan Water' to Michael and his father and mother at Ashbridge, any more than it is being a politician to read the morning papers and argue about the Irish question with you.

To have a career in politics means that you must be a member of Parliament--I daresay the House of Lords would do--and make speeches and stand the racket.

In the same way, to be a singer doesn't mean to sing after dinner or to go squawking anyhow in a workhouse, but it means to get up on a platform before critical people, and if you don't do your very best be damned by them.