"Please don't tell Vivien what you saw. I don't want her to know I've been crying. She's remorseful enough as it is about her marriage costing me my 'place.'"
"Was that what you were crying about?"
"It seems silly, doesn't it? But I've been happy here, and—and they've got fond of me. And finding a new one—well, it seems like plunging into this lake on a cold day. So quite suddenly I got terribly dreary."
"Well, you've had it out, haven't you?" suggested the Nun consolingly.
"Yes; and much good it's done to the situation!" laughed Isobel ruefully. "Oh, well, I suppose my feelings are the situation—at any rate there's no other."
"Then if you feel better, things are better too."
The Nun did not feel that she was getting on much with the secret object of her visit; she even felt the impulse to get on with it weakened. She was more inclined just to have a friendly, a consoling chat. However business was business. To get on she must take a little risk. She dug the earth on the edge of the pond with the point of her sunshade and observed carelessly, "If you very particularly wanted to stay at Nutley, I should have thought you might have the chance."
"Oh, are people gossiping about that? Poor Mr. Wellgood!"
"It was the observation of my own eyes," said the Nun sedately. "Oh, of course you can deny it if you like, though I don't see why you should—and I shan't believe you."
"If you've such confidence in your own eyes as that, Miss Flower, it would be wasting my breath to try to convince you. Have it your own way. But even that would be—a new place. And I've told you that I'm afraid of new places."