'I don't believe they will have dancing,' she said; 'there are so many very young children here and they get in the way so. But I hope there won't be any more games—games are stupid.'
'Only to girls,' said Bertie; 'girls never care about any fun.'
'Not your kind of fun,' she said, a little vaguely. 'I don't mind hide-and-seek in a nice old house with long passages and dark corners and secret panels—and ghosts even—that's jolly; but I don't care much about running round and round a row of silly chairs, trying to sit down when the music stops and keep other people out—I call it rude.'
'You didn't seem to think it so rude just now,' he retorted; 'you were laughing quite as much as any one; and I saw you push young Bobby Meekin off the last chair of all, and sit on it yourself, anyhow.'
'Bertie, you didn't,' she cried, flushing angrily.
'I did though.'
'But I tell you I didn't!
'And I say you did!'
'If you will go on saying I did, when I'm quite sure I never did anything of the sort,' she said, 'please don't speak to me again; I shan't answer if you do. And I think you're a particularly ill-bred boy—not polite, like my brothers.'
'Your brothers are every bit as rude as I am. If they aren't, they're milksops—I should be sorry to be a milksop.'