milk."

"You are a most singular person," said the young lady. "What is your
object in all this?"

"Not to trouble you about it," he replied, very gently. "Only to arm
myself with knowledge enough to help you, if ever you freely ask my
help."

"But why should I need help?"

He continued his dreamy monologue. "You couldn't have come in to see
protegees, humble friends, that sort of thing, or you'd have gone
through into the parlour...and you couldn't have come in because
you were ill, or you'd have spoken to the woman of the place, who's
obviously respectable...besides, you don't look ill in that way, but
only unhappy.... This street is the only original long lane that has
no turning; and the houses on both sides are shut up.... I could only
suppose that you'd seen somebody coming whom you didn't want to meet;
and found the public-house was the only shelter in this wilderness
of stone.... I don't think I went beyond the licence of a stranger
in glancing at the only man who passed immediately after.... And as I
thought he looked like the wrong sort...and you looked like the right
sort.... I held myself ready to help if he annoyed you; that is all.
As for my friend, he'll be back soon; and he certainly can't find out
anything by stumping down a road like this.... I didn't think he could."

"Then why did you send him out?" she cried, leaning forward with yet
warmer curiosity. She had the proud, impetuous face that goes with
reddish colouring, and a Roman nose, as it did in Marie Antoinette.

He looked at her steadily for the first time, and said: "Because I hoped
you would speak to me."

She looked back at him for some time with a heated face, in which there
hung a red shadow of anger; then, despite her anxieties, humour broke
out of her eyes and the corners of her mouth, and she answered almost
grimly: "Well, if you're so keen on my conversation, perhaps you'll
answer my question." After a pause she added: "I had the honour to ask
you why you thought the man's nose was false."

"The wax always spots like that just a little in this weather," answered
Father Brown with entire simplicity.

"But it's such a crooked nose," remonstrated the red-haired girl.

The priest smiled in his turn. "I don't say it's the sort of nose one
would wear out of mere foppery," he admitted. "This man, I think, wears
it because his real nose is so much nicer."

"But why?" she insisted.

"What is the nursery-rhyme?" observed Brown ab