Page:Edgar Wallace--Tam o the Scoots.djvu/245

 are many ways of a friendship," she smiled; "there's the 'If-you-come-to-my-town-look-me-up' way. There's the 'You'll-write-every-day' way—and—" She hesitated again.

"Go on," said Vera calmly.

"And there's—well, the conventional way."

Vera smiled. "I can't imagine Tam doing anything conventional," she said.

Elizabeth jumped up with a laugh, walked to the little bare dressing-table and began brushing her hair.

"Why do you laugh?" asked Vera.

"The whole thing's so curious," replied the girl. "Here's a man who is head-over-heels in love with you—"

"In love with me!"

Vera Laramore went red and white by turns and lost, for a moment, her grasp of the situation, then grew virtuously indignant, which was a tactical error for if she were innocent of such a thought as that