"Have you come back again?" she enquired.
"Yes," said Philip, scarlet.
"I wanted to tell you," pursued Philip doggedly, "that I wasn't shy just now."
The little girl nodded her head.
"I see," she said coldly. "You were not shy—only rude. Is that it?"
The greater part of Philip's short life had been spent, as the reader knows, in imbibing the principle that a man not only may, but, if he values his soul, must, be rude to women upon all occasions. It is therefore regrettable to have to record that at this point—at the very first encounter with the enemy—Philip threw his principles overboard.
"Oh, no," he said in genuine distress. "I didn't mean to be rude to you. It—it was a different reason."
The little girl made no reply for a moment, but stood up on her heels and unrolled her cushion to double its former width.
"Come up here and tell me about it," she said maternally, patting the seat she had prepared.