“But what did you go for?” she asked, goading him suspiciously.
“To see the sea and the ships and the fighting ships with cannons——”
“You might have taken me,” said the child reproachfully.
“Yes, I ought to have done, oughtn’t I?” he said, as if regretful.
Gwen still looked full at him.
“You are red,” she said.
He glanced quickly in the glass, and replied:
“That is the sun. Hasn’t it been hot?”
“Mm! It made my nose all peel. Vera said she would scrape me like a new potato.” The child laughed and turned shyly away.
“Come here,” said Siegmund. “I believe you’ve got a tooth out, haven’t you?”
He was very cautious and gentle. The child drew back. He hesitated, and she drew away from him, unwilling.
“Come and let me look,” he repeated.
She drew farther away, and the same constrained smile appeared on her face, shy, suspicious, condemning.
“Aren’t you going to get your chocolate?” he asked, as the child hesitated in the doorway.
She glanced into his room, and answered:
“I’ve got to go to mam and have my hair done.”
Her awkwardness and her lack of compliance insulted him. She went downstairs without going into his room.
Siegmund, rebuffed by the only one in the house from whom he might have expected friendship, pro-
