"Yes'm," again said Dickie. His tea was terribly hot and burnt his tongue, so that tears stood in his eyes.
"And I suppose you've been angry with me."
"No, ma'am."
Sheila was not particularly pleased with this gentle reply. "Why, Dickie, you know you have!"
"No, ma'am."
"Then why haven't you spoken to me? Why have you looked that way at me?"
"I don't speak to folks that don't speak to me," said Dickie, lifting the wafer as though its extreme lightness was faintly repulsive to him.
"Well," said Sheila bitterly, "you haven't been alone in your attitude.
Very few people have been speaking to me. My only loyal friends are Mr.
Hudson and Amelia Plecks and Carthy and Jim. Jim made no promises about
being my guardian, but—"
"But he is your guardian?" Dickie drawled the question slightly. His gift of faint irony and impersonal detachment flicked Sheila's temper as it had always flicked his father's.
"Jim is my friend," Sheila maintained in defiance of a still, small voice. "He has given me a pony and has taken me riding—"