have nobody in the world to care whether you live or die. Why, I haven't a
relation near enough to be even interested in all my money--there's
loneliness for you!"

Joan felt full of a great pity, but could not tell how to express it. Even
her dull brains were not slow enough to credit his frank assertion that he
and she were equals; but she accepted the statement in some degree, and
now, with her mind wandering in his lonely existence, wondered if she might
presume to express sympathy for him and proclaim herself his friend. She
hesitated, for such friendship as hers, though it came hot from her little
heart, seemed a ludicrous thing to offer this man. Every day of intercourse
with him filled her more with wonder and with admiration; every day he
occupied a wider place in her thoughts; and at that moment his utterances
and his declaration of a want in life made him more human than ever to her,
more easily to be comprehended, more within the reach of her understanding.
And that was not a circumstance calculated to lessen her regard for him by
any means. Until that day he had appeared a being far apart, whose
interests and main threads of life belonged to another sphere; now he had
deliberately come into her world and declared it his own.

The silence became painful to Joan, but she could not pluck up courage
enough to tell the artist that she at least was a friend. Finally she
spoke, feeling that he waited for her to do so, and her words led to the
point, for she found, in his answer to them, that he took her goodwill for
granted.

"Ain't you got no uncles nor nothin' o' that even, Mister Jan?"

He laughed and shook his head.