"I am coming to that," the other answered; she stood with her head averted, looking for a cigarette. "I am always a damned silent person myself," she went on, "and I do not think anyone can accuse me of being curious about their pasts. I do not want to know a blessed thing about yours, for instance, but that guest of Miss Wembly's was a nurse from St. George's Hospital."
"Oh," said Joan blankly; she was standing just within the door, her back against the clothes that hung on it.
"Well," Rose hurried on, "it has gone all round the place like lightning. They aren't fond of you because they hate me and we are friends. Yesterday one of them took the story to Miss Nigel and she is going to ask you to leave."
"What story?" asked Joan; she had not followed the other's swift deduction.
Rose lit a cigarette and held out the case to Joan. "Have one," she said, "and come and sit down. As I said before, I am not asking for personal history, I am telling you the facts as they affect this place. They say you were to have had a baby, and you are not married."
She shrugged her shoulders and sank into a chair.
"You mean," whispered Joan, "that the nurse told them that?"
"I suppose so," Rose admitted; "anyway, Miss Nigel spoke of it to me to-day. She is not a bad sort, Miss Nigel, she was very kind to me once, but she is going to tell you to go."
"What have you thought of it?" asked Joan.
"I don't think about other people's affairs," Rose answered. "Come and sit down, I have got some jam for you after the powder, for I believe I have found a job for you. But first you must move into diggings, these clubs are all in a league, every one of them will be shut to you."