Page:Edgar Wallace--Tam o the Scoots.djvu/246

 which her friend expressed she should have been either amused or curious.

"How can you talk such rubbish? Tam and I are jolly good friends. He is a real fine man, as straight as a die and as plucky as he's straight. He has more sense, more judgment—" She was breathless.

"Spare me the catalogue of his virtues," said Elizabeth drily. "I grant he is perfection and therefore unlovable. All that I asked you out of sheer idle curiosity was: How is your friendship to be rounded off?"

Vera was silent. "I shall see him to-night, of course," she said with a fine air of unconcern, "and I hope we shall part the best of friends; but as to his being in love with me, that is nonsense!"

"Of course it is," said Elizabeth soothingly. "What makes you think he is in love with me?" Vera asked suddenly.

"Symptoms."

"But what symptoms?"