"I saw you and your sister laughing at me and it worried me. I thought I
must be looking the guy some way."

Ted considered. "Oh, no!" he said. "She asked me if I thought you were
enjoying the dinner as well as you would have liked the corn-popping."

"And what did you decide?"

"I said I couldn't tell, because I never saw you at a corn-popping. I
asked her that day we went to walk why she wouldn't ask you to it, but
she just said you were too busy to come. I didn't think you acted too
busy to come," he said naïvely, glancing up into Richard's down-bent
face.

"Didn't I? Haven't I looked very busy whenever you have seen me in your
uncle's library?"

Ted shook his head. "I don't think you have--not the way Louis looks
busy in father's office, nor the way father does."

Richard laughed, but somehow the frank comment stung him a little, as he
would not have imagined the comment of an eleven-year-old boy could have
done. "See here, Ted," he urged, "tell me why you say that. I think
myself I've done a lot of work since I've been here, and I can't see why
I haven't looked it."

But Ted shook his head. "I don't think it would be polite to tell you,"
he said, which naturally did not help matters much.

Still holding the lad's arm, Richard walked over to Roberta, who had