Ted flushed. "Cy makes it worse than it need be," he muttered.
"But it is pretty bad, isn't it?" she repeated in a voice there was little life in. "It was about as bad as it could be for you all, wasn't it?"
"Well, Ruth," he began diffidently, "of course—of course this house hasn't been a very cheerful place since you went away."
"No," she murmured, "of course not." She sat there dwelling upon that, forming a new picture of just what it had been. "It really made a big difference, did it, Ted?—even for you?" She asked it very simply, as one asking a thing in order to know the truth.
Ted sat down on the bed. He was shuffling his feet a little, embarrassed, but his face was finely serious, as if this were a grave thing of which it was right they talk.
"Of course I was a good deal of a kid, Ruth," he began. "And yet—" He halted, held by kindness.
"Yes?" she pressed, as if wanting to get him past kindness.
"Well, yes, Ruth, it was—rather bad. I minded on account of the fellows, you see. I knew they were talking and—" Again he stopped; his face had reddened. Her face too colored up at that.
"And then of course home—you know it had always been so jolly here at home—was a pretty different place, Ruth," he took it up gently. "With Cy charging around, and mother and father so—different."
"And they were different, were they, Ted?" she asked quietly.