"I daresay I shouldn't cry if I were the great Miss Doris Flower." The Nun gurgled. That ebullition could usually be brought about by any reference to the greatness of her position, not precisely because the position was not great--rather because it was funny that it should be. She sat down beside Isobel. "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." "All plunges aren't into cold water," the Nun observed reflectively. "That one would be colder, I think, than a quite strange plunge--away from Nutley." "It's a great pity we're not built so as to fall in love conveniently. It would have been so nice for you to stay--in the new place." "I'm only letting you have it your own way, Miss Flower. I've admitted nothing." "All that appears at present is that you needn't go if you don't like--and yet you cry about going!" Isobel smiled. "I might cry at leaving all my friends, especially at leaving Vivien, without wanting to stop--with Mr. Wellgood, as you insist on having it. Is that comprehensible?" "Well, I expect I've asked enough questions," said the cunning Nun, wondering hard how she could contrive to ask another--and get an answer to it. "But in Meriton there's nothing to do but gossip to and about one's friends. That's what makes it so jolly. Why, this wedding is simply occupation for all of us! What shall we do when it's over? Oh, well, I shall be gone, I suppose."