This sudden turn in the glimpse of Betty’s character left Nancy simply gasping with surprise. She wasn’t at all the foolish, pretty doll she had been pictured, she _did_ love Rosa, and Rosa was simply crazy to be so opposed to her, thought Nancy.
One thing was certain, however, nobody, just nobody, had a good word for Orilla. Jealousy is an awful thing, Nancy reflected, for even in her short life she had heard of its offences and, of course, Orilla was jealous.
Before Rosa returned from her confab with her father and before Lady Betty was back in her own room, Nancy had again fallen into speculation as to when, where and how she would actually meet Orilla.
“When the coast is clear,” she promptly decided. “When the folks are gone and Rosa is alone. But _I’ll_ be here,” decided Nancy, not realizing how promptly she was espousing the cause she had been so determined to ignore.
Then a thumping and pouncing through the hall announced the arrival of Rosa. She was calling to Nancy, shouting, yelling without even expecting or even giving Nancy the slightest chance of replying.
“What do you know! What do you know!” she sang out joyously. “We’re going to the hotel! Down to Sunset! Nancy Brandon, what a lark! In the dark! Let us park!” she went on foolishly, trying to rhyme words to suit her caprice. “If you hadn’t come, of course,” she brought her voice down a few keys but not quite to dead center, “I shouldn’t have been allowed that. Betty has fallen in love with you--”
“Don’t be silly, Rosa,” said Nancy quite sagely. “It’s all on your account and you’re a perfect goose not to know that she is in love with _you_!”
“With me! Fat, furious me! With the bad tempered manners, and badness cropping out all over me!” scoffed Rosa.
“Like the bad boy in the play who was always scared to death of a pop gun. Rosa, you are not a very good actress,” laughed Nancy, and in that little speech she showed Rosa the way that she, at least, regarded her faults. They were a pose, a manner put on to ward off sympathy. And Rosa herself could not hate sympathy more than did Nancy.
They talked over the prospects of that summer hotel until it would seem all the summer’s fun and good times were dependent upon it. Rosa just couldn’t wait to see what Betty was sending in from Boston in the box, which Nancy had tactfully said was “for us,” and it was then, just as Betty had hinted, that Rosa forgot her rebel pose, for she actually expressed great hopes of what might be in that box for _her_!