Mr. Leighton talked quite unconcernedly about the departure of Mr. Symington. "Can you tell me why he leaves us so suddenly?" he asked of Miss Meredith. She had always made a point of liking to be asked about Mr. Symington. This time she seemed afraid of the subject, certainly of Mr. Leighton’s airy manner of handling it. Robin’s face flushed hotly in an enraged sort of manner. Mabel’s grew cold. With all their experience of each other, and their knowledge of what had been going on, none in the room knew the nature of the crisis at hand, except the actors in it, and Elma. But, by the intuition of a nature that scented disaster easily and wilfully, Isobel, without a word from one of them, saw some of these hearts laid bare. Miss Meredith, ill at ease, interested her immensely. Miss Meredith at last answered that she knew nothing of the reason why Mr. Symington had left so abruptly. Elma rose shaking in every limb. "That is not true," she said. Her voice, more that her words carried effect. She could go no further, she could only say, "That is not true." Mrs. Leighton looked very surprised, and then helplessly bewildered. Miss Meredith had a talent for seeing her chance. She saw it here. She turned in a rather foolish way, as though they intended some compliment. "Indeed," said she, "you all over-rate my influence with Mr. Symington. It is nothing to me whether he goes or stays." Mabel pulled Elma into a corner. "Oh shut up dear, for Heaven’s sake shut up!" she whispered, and that incident was closed. But Isobel began to play with a loud triumphant accompaniment and sang in a manner which might have shown every one the thing which she thought she had just discovered. Instead, they all declared they had never heard such clear top notes. CHAPTER XVI The Thin Edge of the Wedge It seemed to Mabel that Isobel’s proposals, kindly worded and prettily mentioned, were always impossible of acceptance. She did nothing but refuse these overtures to friendship for the next week or so. This was the more awkward since she was particularly anxious to make everything nice for Isobel. But the proposals and the overtures seemed continually to occur in connexion with the Merediths. It was a ridiculous thing of course that Isobel should be proposing anything in connexion with the Merediths.