Though there was nothing obvious, there must be something sensible; at least one thing must be more sensible than the other. Was it more sensible to do nothing--which was to favour the "row"--or to attempt something--which was to work for the marriage? Her temperament asserted itself, and led her to a conclusion in conflict with Andy's. She was by nature inclined always to do something. In the end the "row" was a certain evil; the marriage only a risk. Men do settle down--sometimes! (She wrinkled her nose as she propounded, and qualified, this proposition.) The risk was preferable to the certainty. After all, her practical sense whispered, in these days even marriage is not wholly irrevocable. Yes, she would be for the marriage and against the "row"--and she would tell Andy that. Something was to be done then. But what? That seemed to the Nun a much easier question--a welcome reappearance of the obvious thing. "I must find out what the woman really wants. Until we know that, it's simply working in the dark." So she concluded, and at last turned on her side and went to sleep. Chapter XVII. REFORMATION. In very truth the atmosphere at Nutley was heavy with threatening clouds; unless a fair wind came to scatter them, the storm must soon break. Isobel had fled within her feminine barricades--the barricades which women are so clever at constructing and at persuading the conventions of life to help them to defend. A woman's solitudes may not be stormed; with address she can escape private encounters. In sore fear of Harry because sore afraid of herself, she gave him no opportunity. In sore fear of Wellgood, she shrank from facing him with a rupture of their secret arrangement. Both men were tricked out of their stolen interviews--Wellgood out of his legitimate privilege, Harry out of his trespassing. Each asked why; in each jealousy harked back to its one definite starting-point--Harry's to her suggestions about her relations with Vivien's father, Wellgood's to Belfield's hints that, as a companion, Isobel was needlessly good looking. To each of them matter of amusement at the time when they were made, they took on now a new significance; so irony loves to confront our past and present moods. But Wellgood held a card that was not in Harry's hand--a card which could not win the game, but could at least secure an opening. He was employer as well as lover. Vivien's father could command the presence of Vivien's companion--not indeed late at night, for that would be a scarcely judicious straining of his powers, but at any reputable business-transacting hour of the day. For two nights--and that day of which the Nun had been a witness--he suffered the evasion of his rights; then, with a suavity dangerous in a man so rough, he prayed Miss Vintry's presence in the study for ten minutes (the established period!) before dinner; there were ways and means to be discussed, he said, matters touching the _trousseau_ and the wedding entertainment. Vivien