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"Oh, Roy, you are ! 'Tisn't me that's making fusses." Though Roy knew nothing as yet about woman and the last word, he instinctively took refuge in the masculine dignity that spurns descent to the dusty arena when it feels defeat in the air. "Girls don't never fuss do they?" he queried suavely. "Let's get on with the Game and not bother about your Boy-of-ten."

But somehow he could not make himself talk about these things simply for "show off," because a strange boy, with bad manners, was putting on airs. Besides, he never much wanted to talk when he was eating, though he could not have explained why. So he devoted his attention chiefly to a plate of chocolate cakes, leaving the Boy-of-ten conversationally in command of the field.

Then the sun flashed through it and the shadows crept round the great twin beeches on the lawn and the day was as lovely as ever again. And yet for Roy, it was not the same loveliness. Aunt Jane's repeated threat of school brooded over his sensitive spirit, like the thundercloud in the wood that was the colour of spilled ink. And the Boy-of-ten a potential enemy was coming to tea....

It was the conscious craving for her sympathy, her applause, that awakened him to his dilemma. He had championed her with all his might against that lumpy Boy-of-ten, who kicked in the meanest way; and he couldn't explain why, so she couldn't know ever. The memory of those insulting words hurt him so that he shrank from repeating them to anyone least of all to her.