“Where have you been?”

“We went to Derby to see a friend of my father's.”

“Who?”

It was an adventure to her to put direct questions and get plain answers.

She knew she might do it with this man.

“Why, he is a clergyman too — he is my guardian — one of them.”

Ursula knew that Skrebensky was an orphan.

“Where is really your home now?” she asked.

“My home? — I wonder. I am very fond of my colonel — Colonel Hepburn: then there are my aunts: but my real home, I suppose, is the army.”