“What's the matter?” said Wetherell.
Cynthia's face was flushed, and she was plainly vexed about something.
“I gave her a whistle,” said the boy, with a little laugh of vexation, “and now she says she won't take it because I owned up I made it for another girl.”
Cynthia held it out to him, not deigning to appeal her ease.
“You must take it back,” she said.
“But I want you to have it,” said the boy.
“It wouldn't be right for me to take it when you made it for somebody else.”
After all, people with consciences are born, not made. But this was a finer distinction that the boy had ever met with in his experience.
“I didn't know you when I made the whistle,” he objected, puzzled and downcast.
“That doesn't make any difference.”