Pitt was silent a minute.
'It was about as much as I could stand, to see it. Then I got the child some things that he could eat. He is well now; as well as he ever will be.'
'I did not see the rosebush.'
'Ah, it did not live. Nothing could there.'
'Well, Mr. Pitt, haven't you done your part, as far as this case is concerned?'
'Have I? Would you stop with that?'
Betty sat very quiet, but internally fidgeted. What did Pitt ask her these questions for? Why had he taken her on this expedition? She wished she had not gone; she wished she had not come to England; and yet she would not be anywhere else at this moment but where she was, for any possible consideration. She wished Pitt would be different, and not fill his head with lace-menders and London alleys; and yet—even so—things might be worse. Suppose Pitt had devoted his energies to gambling, and absorbed all his interests in hunters and racers. Betty had known that sort of thing; and now summarily concluded that men must make themselves troublesome in one way or another. But this particular turn this man had taken did seem to set him so far off from her!
'What would you do, Mr. Pitt?' she said, with a somewhat weary cadence in her voice which he could not interpret.
'Look at it, and tell me, from your standpoint.'
'If you took that woman out of those lodgings, there would come somebody else into them, and you might begin the whole thing over again. In that way the Duke of Trefoil might give you enough to do for a lifetime.'