"Do you mean to say, Max, that you'd do such a thing?" Sprite asked.
"I don't say I would, and I don't say I wouldn't," Max said in a sullen voice.
"Well, would you?" Princess Polly asked, but Max looked disagreeable, and in a few moments had turned and left them, as abruptly as he had come.
For a moment Polly, Rose and Sprite sat very still, each looking into the faces of the others.
"What made him so cross?" Sprite asked, "and if he did feel cross, and couldn't help it, then I should have thought he would have stayed away."
"So should I," said Polly and Rose, and "so should I," echoed Sprite.
Outside the garden wall eager ears were listening, and the ears belonged to a little figure that crouched close by the gateway, just out of sight of the three playmates, yet quite near enough to hear all that had been said.
It was Gwen Harcourt.
She had been a bit too saucy to Max Deland, had called him a "sissy," and what boy would bear that? Max had returned the favor by calling her a "Tom-boy," and then he had made a horrid face, and raced off up the beach.
Then Gwen was sorry. She liked to play with Max, and while he could run away, and laugh as he went, Gwen was ready to cry.