"It wouldn't be in this case. If I might only tell you. There's no one in the hotel whom I can speak to." "Surely," said Jane, "there is Mrs. Tailleur, your friend." "My friend? Yes, she is my friend; that's why I can't say anything to her. She _is_ the difficulty." "Indeed," said Jane coldly. Nothing in Miss Keating appealed to the spirit of adventurous sympathy. "I have received so much kindness from her. She _is_ kind." "Evidently," said Jane. "That makes my position so very delicate--so very disagreeable." "I should think it would." Miss Keating felt the antipathy in Miss Lucy's tone. "You _do_ think it strange of me to come to you when I don't know you?" "No, no; people are always coming to me. Perhaps because they don't know me." "Ah, you see, you make them come." "Indeed I don't. I try to stop them." "Are you trying to stop me?" "Yes; I think I am." "Don't stop me, please." "But surely it would be better to consult your own people." Miss Keating paused. Miss Lucy had suggested the obvious course, which she had avoided for reasons which were not obvious even to herself. "My own people?" she murmured pensively. "They are not here." It was not her fault if Miss Lucy jumped to the conclusion that they were dead. "I wonder," she said, "if you see my difficulty?" "I see it plainly enough. Mrs. Tailleur has been very kind to you, and you want to leave her. Why?" "I'm not sure that I ought to stay." "You must be the best judge of your obligations." "There are," said Miss Keating, "other things; I don't know that I'm a good judge of _them_. You see, I was brought up very carefully." "Were you?" "Yes. I'm not sure that it's wise to be as careful as all that--to keep young girls in ignorance of things they--things they must, sooner or later----" she paused staring as if at an abyss. "What things?" asked Jane bluntly. "I don't know what things. I don't _know_ anything. I'm afraid. I'm so innocent, Miss Lucy, that I'm like a child in the dark. I think I want some one to hold my hand and tell me there's nothing there." "Perhaps there isn't." "Yes, but it's so dark that I can't see whether there is or isn't. I'm just like a little child. Except that it imagines things and I don't." "Don't you? Are you sure you don't let your imagination run away with you sometimes?" "Not," said Miss Keating, "not on this subject. Even when I'm brought into contact"--her shoulder-blades obeyed the suggestion of her brain, and shuddered. "I don't know whether it's good or bad to refuse to face things. I can't help it. All that side of life is so intensely disagreeable to me." "It's not agreeable to me," said Jane. "And what _has_ it got to do with Mrs. Tailleur?" Miss Keating smiled queerly. "I don't know. I wish I did." "If you mean you think she isn't nice, I can tell you I'm sure you're mistaken." "It's not what _I_ think. It's what other people think." "What people?" "The people here." Little Jane lifted her head superbly.