"Is it Sir Lionel who's making you play it?" he asked.
"Oh, dear, no," I broke out, before I stopped to think.
"Then, he isn't in it?"
I thought it looked more respectable to admit that, whatever the "game" was, Sir Lionel and I were not playing it together.
"You're doing it for your friend," deduced our young detective.
I gently intimated that that was my business. But Mr. Burden advised me that I would be wise to accept him as my partner if I didn't want the business to fail.
"What have I done to you, that you should interfere?" I wanted to know, only I didn't dare—actually didn't dare, for Ellaline's sake, to speak angrily. Oh, I did feel like a worm's paper doll!
"You've made me like you, awfully," he said.
"Then you shouldn't want to do me any harm," I suggested.
"I don't want to do you harm," he defended himself. "What I want is to see as much of you as possible, and also I'd like to give Aunt Gwen a little pleasure, thrown in with mine. I want you to ask Sir Lionel to invite us to join your party. There's plenty of room for us in that big motor-car of his. I went to see it in the garage to-day."