Lalage's face grew hard. "Why should they hunt you like that? If they really cared, they would have looked after you, instead of sending you to those lodgings. They want you to be like a little boy, to do just what they say, and never to have a mind of your own—oh, yes, but they do. They ought to have seen that after all you've been through, you need care and love."
He looked up with a queer light in his eyes. "Do you love me, Lalage? You've never said so."
"I like you very, very much," she answered.
But he was not satisfied. "Do you love me?" he repeated.
"I like you better, much better, than anyone else I ever met," and with that he had to be content.
CHAPTER XIV
"I know someone who will let you a room, just as an address, in case those horrid sisters of yours make inquiries." Lalage turned round suddenly from the looking-glass, her hands still busy with her hair.
"Who is she? Where does she live?" Jimmy asked lazily, being at the moment more interested in that same hair than in anything else.