There was no use to lie to herself. She was
utterly lonely and heartsick.

She had guarded the portals of life with religious
care--with a care altogether unnecessary as events had
proved. There had been no crush of rude men to assault
her. Only an awkward carpenter, a butcher's boy and
the ice man! It was incredible. Of all the men whose
restless feet pressed the pavements of New York, not
one, save these three, had apparently cared whether she
lived or died.

The men whom she met in her duties in the
schoolroom she had found utterly devoid of imagination
and beneath contempt. They had each been obviously on
guard against the machinations of the female of the
species. They had, each of them, shown plainly their
fear and hatred of women teachers. The feeling was
mutual. God knows she had no desire to encroach on
their domain any longer than absolutely necessary.

Perhaps she was making a mistake. The thought was
strangling. Only the girl who waived conventions in
the rushing tide of the modern city's life seemed to
live at all. The others merely existed. Jane
Anderson lived! There could be no mistake about that.
She had mastered the ugly mob. Its cruel loneliness
was to her a thing unknown. But Jane was an
exception--the one woman in a thousand who could defy
conventions and yet keep her soul and body clean.