All this in a very tiny corner? Of course. Will you find me anywhere that is not a corner, please? Alexander worked in one, and Caesar. "What does it matter then what I do?" "No more," I must answer, being no philosopher and therefore unprepared with a theory, "than it matters whether or not you are squashed under yonder train. But if you think--on your own account--that the one matters, why, for all we can say, perhaps the other does." That duck pond of the Simpsons'! By apparent chance--it may be, in fact, by some unusual receptivity in my own bearing--that very day Chat talked to me about it. I had grown friendlier toward Chat, having perceived that the cunning in her--(it was there, and refuted Cartmell's charge of mere foolishness)--ran to no more than a decent selfishness, informed by years of study of Jenny, deflected by a spinsterish admiration of Octon's claim to unquestioned male dominion. Her reason said--"We are very well as we are. I am comfortable. I am 'putting by.' Jenny's marriage might make things worse." The spinster added, "But this must end some day. Let it end--when it must--in an irresistible (perhaps to Chat's imagination a rather lurid) conquest." Paradoxically her instinct (for if anything be an instinct, selfishness is) squared with what I had deciphered of Jenny's strategy--in immediate action at least. Chat would not have Octon shown the door; neither would she set him at the head of the table--just yet. Being comfortable, she abhorred all chance of convulsions--as Jenny, being powerful, resented all threat of dominion. But if the convulsion must come--as it must some day--Chat wanted it dramatic--matter for gossip and for flutters! To her taste Octon fulfilled that aesthetic requirement. Naturally Chat saw Jenny at the Simpsons' from her own point of view--through herself--and by that avenue approached the topic. "Of course things are very much changed for the better in most ways, Mr. Austin--if they'll only last. The comforts!--And, of course, the salary! Well, it's not the thing to talk about that. Still I daresay you yourself sometimes think--? Yes, of course, one must consider it. But there were features of the rectory life which I confess I miss. We had always a very cheerful tea, and supper, too, was sociable. In fact one never wanted for a chat. Here I'm thrown very much on my own resources. Jenny is out or busy, and Mrs. Bennet--the housekeeper, you know--is reserved and, of course, not at her ease with me. And then there was the authority!" (Was Chat also among the Caesars?) "Poor Chat had a great deal of authority at the rectory, Mr. Austin--yes--she had! Mrs. Simpson an invalid--the rector busy or not caring to meddle--the girls were left entirely to me. My word was law." She shook her head regretfully over the change in her position. "We all like that, Miss Chatters, when we can get it!"