CHAPTER XIII
Mr. Towle gave no sign of a continued interest in Jane's affairs; and because he did not, that imprudent young person felt herself to be lonely and neglected beyond her deserts. At night, in the stuffy seclusion of the trunkroom, she wept large tears into her thin pillow, and prayed with truly feminine inconsistency and fervor for numbers of things which she as resolutely thrust aside by day.
Twice she sought solace and advice from Bertha Forbes, and as often spurned both, when both were urged upon her.
"You remind me," said Miss Forbes at last, "of a horse we used to have out in the country. My brothers were burning the stumps out of a ten-acre wood lot one summer, and that animal would jump over the fence and go and roll in the hot coals and ashes whenever he got a chance till his hide was burned into holes. The creature must have suffered frightfully, but he persisted in doing it just the same. We had to tie him up after a bit."
"Oh, thanks!" cried Jane angrily, "perhaps you think I need tying up."
"I do, indeed," agreed Bertha Forbes cheerfully. She studied the pretty, wilful face in silence for a few moments. "You are much too fond of having your own way," she added sententiously, "and one's own way is so seldom the path of pleasantness that the Bible tells about. I know, for I've tried it."
She swallowed hard once or twice, then she went on in her gruffest voice. "Look here, Jane, I don't want to see you make the fool of yourself that I did. I somehow got the notion that a woman was just as able as a man to make her way in the world, and that I wasn't going to depend upon 'petticoat push' for my living. I despised the idea of being dependent upon anybody, and so I—I— Well, to cut a long story short, I told the only man who ever cared enough about me to want to take care of me, that I could take care of myself. I told him so three times in all, I remember. The third time he said, 'All right, Bertha; I reckon you'll have to try.' A year later he married one of those soft pink-and-white little things that I had always looked down upon as being too insignificant to despise. Yesterday——"
Bertha Forbes paused to gulp painfully once or twice. "Yesterday that woman passed me in her carriage. There was a child on either side of her, and she was dressed like a flower; which means, you know, a bit more magnificently than Solomon in all his glory. She didn't know me, of course. And I tramped on down to my office. You know what my work is, Jane."
"Yes, I know," and Jane blushed painfully. "I—I don't really like taking care of myself," she murmured, after a little, "but I can't see how I am going to help myself for a while. Anyway, you may be happier in your horrid office than that woman in her carriage, unless she—loves the man who gives it to her." The girl finished with a soft, far-away look in her brown eyes.