This caused Vava to exclaim with indignation, 'How could you possibly, when I knew nothing about it, nor how they met—or anything? They'd quarrelled for ever a week ago!'
'Ah! that's a sure sign,' said Lord Rothery, teasing her. He had left the Jones family to make much of Stella, and took Vava to a window to console her, for he saw that she was more angry than pleased.
'I believe it's an awful mistake,' she confided to him.
'Not a bit of it; they are frightfully in love with each other. He's a splendid fellow, and quite a gentleman,' declared the young lord.
'Then they've been horridly deceitful about it, for Stella never would be decently civil to him while I was there, and left him last week; and now I suppose they have been meeting all this week and falling in love,' said Vava in tones of disgust.
'Not they, that was done before; it's what they call a Scotch wooing, and you ought to be glad about it, instead of being so disagreeable,' he protested.
A tear stole down Vava's face, but she would not give way, and only said, 'I don't see what is the use of her having taken a house when she meant to go and do this.'
'These are things one cannot foresee; one does not mean to do them; they do themselves. You'll do just the same when your time comes.'
'I shall not. If I were in love with you I should be civil to you, and let you see that I liked you,' declared Vava.
'All right; I'll remember that, and in the meantime I think you might be civil to your sister and Jamie.'