“Why?”
“Why? Why, because people would be horrified to hear a little girl talking like that,” Michael explained.
“Oh, I thought you meant they’d be shocked to think of people not being married.”
“I say, really, you know, Stella, you ought to be careful. I wouldn’t have thought you even knew that people sometimes—very seldom, though, mind—don’t get married.”
“You funny old boy,” rippled Stella. “You must think I’m a sort of doll just wound up to play the piano. If I didn’t know that much after going to Germany, why—oh, Michael, I do think you’re funny.”
“I was afraid these beastly foreigners would spoil you,” muttered Michael.
“It’s not the foreigners. It’s myself.”
“Stella!”
“Well, I’m fifteen and a half.”
“I thought girls were innocent,” said Michael with disillusion in his tone.