But isn't there somebody
somewhere--_anybody_--you can go to and ask them to help you out
of this?"
"No--there's no one," said she.
"That can't be true," insisted the forelady. "Everybody has
somebody--or can get somebody--that is, anyone who looks like
you. I wouldn't suggest such a thing to a fool. But _you_
could keep your head. There isn't any other way, and you might
as well make up your mind to it."
To confide is one of the all but universal longings--perhaps
needs--of human nature. Susan's honest, sympathetic eyes, her
look and her habit of reticence, were always attracting
confidences from such unexpected sources as hard, forbidding
Miss Tuohy. Susan was not much surprised when Miss Tuohy went
on to say:
"I was spoiled when I was still a kid--by getting to know well
a man who was above my class. I had tastes that way, and he
appealed to them. After him I couldn't marry the sort of man
that wanted me. Then my looks went--like a flash--it often
happens that way with us Irish girls. But I can get on. I
know how to deal with these people--and _you_ never could learn.
You'd treat 'em like ladies and they'd treat you as easy fruit.
Yes, I get along all right, and I'm happy--away from here."
Susan's sympathetic glance of inquiry gave the necessary
encouragement. "It's a baby," Miss Tuohy explained--and Susan
knew it was for the baby's sake that this good heart had
hardened itself to the dirty work of forelady.
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