"Get work!" Mrs. Busby was silent. Perhaps that was an unfruitful, and would prove an unrefreshing, field of inquiry. She would leave it unexplored for the present. She paused a little.
"So since then you have been living in New York?"
"Yes."
A longer pause followed. Mrs. Busby looked at the fire and raised one eyebrow.
"Under whose care have you been living, my dear, since you lost your mother's?"
Rotha hesitated. Great soreness of heart combined now with another feeling to make her words difficult. She did not at all want to answer. Nevertheless the girl's temper was to be frank, and she saw no way of evasion here.
"I have had nobody but Mr. Digby," she said.
"Mr. Digby! Mr. Southwode, you mean? That is his name, my dear; don't speak of him as 'Mr. Digby.'"
Rotha's mouth opened, and closed. She was forming herself with all her might on Mr. Digby's model; and besides that, she was trying to obey his injunctions about pleasant behaviour.
"Where have you lived all this time?" a little shorter than the former questions had been put.