"It would have done you good," returns she thoughtfully. She pauses, as if still thinking, and then, "As for me, I have not been good at all since I lost him."
"One can see that," says Rylton. "Crime sits rampant in your eyes."
At this she laughs too; but presently she stops short, and turns to him.
"It is all very well for you to laugh!" says she ruefully. "You have not to go home next week to live again with Uncle George!"
"I begin to hate Uncle George!" says Rylton. "You see how you are demoralizing me! But, surely, if you cannot live in peace with him, there must be others—other relations—who would be glad to chaperone you!"
"No," says the girl, shaking her head sadly. "For one thing, I have no relations—at least, none who could look after me; and, for another, by my father's will, I must stay with Uncle George until my marriage."
"Until your marriage!" Sir Maurice laughs. "Forgive me! I should not have laughed," says he, "especially as your emancipation seems a long way off."
Really, looking at her in the subdued lights of those pink lamps, she seems a mere baby.
"I don't see why it should be so far off," says Tita, evidently affronted. "Lots of girls get married at seventeen; I've heard of people who were married at sixteen! But they must have been fools. No? I don't want to be married, though, if I did, I should be able to get rid of Uncle George. But what I should like to do would be to run away!"
"Where?" asks Rylton, rather abominably, it must be confessed.