A small woman is at an employment center. Her name is Mrs. Lancaster-Jones, and she is hired by a wealthy young mother as a nanny for her five-year-old son Johnny. The woman says that Johnny is a handful, and she asks Mrs. Jones if she likes the countryside, because they live outside of Paris. Mrs. Jones responds that she does, and she reveals that when she taught at a boys' school, the headmaster Mr. Odd used to tease her for her love of flowers. Mrs. Jones begins the job, and she is delighted by the garden, which she is allowed to pick flowers from. She tells Mrs. Radan, the young mother, that she used to make flower arrangements for Mr. Odd, and their relationship was on the way to becoming something else. However, Mrs. Jones says, there are bad people in the world and people at the school began to say that she was trying to catch Mr. Odd, which led to him going away on a holiday for three weeks. When Mrs. Jones reveals information like this to Mrs. Radan, the younger woman always finds an excuse to leave in the form of a housemaid or gardener. Mrs. Jones often think about Mr. Odd's return from his holiday, but Johnny always interrupts her thoughts. She plays with him and welcomes the distraction. But in the evening, she thinks about how excited she was for Mr. Odd to return, and how she thought they would return to their previous relationship. But, when he returned he was there for hours and did not call for her. Mrs. Jones starts to become annoyed with her employer Mrs. Radan and her criticisms of Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Jones elaborately sets the tea table and decorates with flowers for Johnny's friend to come over, even though he comes over five days a week. Mrs. Jones tries to teach the boys to dance when they want to play Indians. All of this makes Mrs. Radan laugh, but Mrs. Jones wants to be able to bring light and movement to their lives. The tension gets worse when Mrs. Radan's mother comes to visit. The woman is in her mid-fifties like Mrs. Jones, but Mrs. Radan believes that Mrs. Jones is only thirty-eight. The grandmother is vocally critical of Mrs. Jones and calls her tiresome, and Mrs. Jones cannot get Mrs. Radan into the nursery to look at her flower arrangements anymore. Mrs. Jones reflects that all of her jobs since leaving the school have been like this; she starts off well, then begins to lose ground, which causes her to panic and hasten the inevitable end. Mrs. Jones has her day off, and decides that she must plan more carefully what to bring back for Johnny. She thinks that some machinery or something electric instead of a book would keep him content for a little longer. Mrs. Jones arrives at the train station early on her day off, so she walks beside the line in the cold. She thinks about Mr. Odd, and how he revealed a week after his return that he was engaged. They had only been making small talk, and he had pushed away her flowers. He had revealed to her that he thought being his secretary in addition to teaching was too much for her, and that he lady he was marrying wanted some extra work at the school. She starts trembling so much at the memory that she can barely walk. Mrs. Jones feels ill on the train, and she goes to a tea room when she gets off. She feels that she cannot go back to the streets, and decides to get Johnny sweets at the station. She decides it does not matter if she gets a gift for Mrs. Radan, because it is all over anyway. She begins writing to her sister for her birthday.