"Then you know enough."
"No, I don't, either. I never tell on one if I promise, you know; but I scare 'em half to death sayin' I will tell if they don't do so and so, you know. There's the cook, now. She's got so she makes my kind of choc'late cake 'bout every day 'cause she thinks if she don't I'll tell marmer something she did one time when you were all gone."
Here the boy laughed, and danced a short shuffle on the close-cut grass.
"You're a low-bred little cad, then," said Carolyn, so sharply that she rather wondered at herself.
Leander stopped dancing. His face grew very red.
"You dasn't say that again!" he shouted. "I guess you wouldn't say such rotten, nasty things if Rodney was here. You're as sweet as California honey when he's round. And I ain't a cad. 'N' if I am, who's a better right? 'N' you're a cad's sister, then,—that's what you are!"
"Welcome diversion!" cried Prudence. "We were getting very tired of telling secrets. Where's that tame crow? I haven't seen him yet."
But the boy could not answer. His face seemed swelling, his sharp eyes were filling.
"Leander, I beg your pardon," hastily said his sister.
"I ain't a cad!" said the boy, in a shrill quaver. "Rodney told me I was real gentlemanly 'bout that reward." Then, with a sudden fury, "I hate you, Carolyn Ffolliott, 'n' you needn't beg my pardon."