"I couldn't; I made the resolve to stand alone, and I shall stick to it. Besides, you are wrong in supposing that any one of them would exert himself for me to any extent; my father did not have—was not intimate enough with anybody."
A difficult woman to aid, thought Kincaid pityingly. A notion had flashed across his mind, at her reference to the kind of employment she had desired, and the announcement of her parentage was strengthening it; but there must be something to go upon, something more than mere assertion.
"If a post turned up, who is there to speak for you?"
"Messrs. Pattenden; I believe they'd speak for me willingly."
"Anybody else?"
"No; but the manager would see anyone who went to him about me, I'm almost sure."
"You need friends, you know," he said; "you're very awkwardly placed without any."
"Oh, I do know! To have no friends is a crime; one's helpless without them. And a woman's helplessness is the best of reasons why no help should be extended to her. But it sounds a merciless argument, doctor—horribly merciless, at the beginning!"
"It's a merciless life. Look here, Miss Brettan, I don't want to beat about the bush: you're in a beastly hole, and if I can pull you out of it I shall be glad—for your own sake, and for the sake of your dead father. It's like this, though; the only thing I can see my way to involves the comfort of someone else. You were talking about a place as companion; I can't live at home now, and my mother wants one."
"Doctor!"