And hearing himself thus effeminized, Ted winced and wondered if he had
not better have asked her after all.

Sheila came up to him with a troubled face. The feud between him and
Charlotte always hurt and bewildered her. "You've made Charlotte feel
bad," she chided reproachfully.

But with Charlotte's taunt still ringing in his ears, Ted was ruthless:
"Fiddlesticks! If she feels bad about that, she's silly. And I can't
tell secrets to silly girls."

Sheila was sorry for Charlotte, but she began to feel vaguely flattered
on her own account: "What's the secret?"

"I know a place--just a little way back yonder--that's _fat_ with nuts!"

Sheila looked disappointed. It seemed, at this hour, rather a poor
secret. But Ted, still with the air of honoring her above all others
of her sex, went on: "I'm going back and get some. And"--this
impressively--"I'm going to let you come with me!"

Sheila brightened at the magnanimous offer, but a moment later grew
uneasy: "Grandmother would be scared if I didn't come home with the
others."

"How'd she find it out? Your house is farthest. She won't see the
rest of 'em."

"But--but when I tell her--" said Sheila uneasily.

"You _needn't_ tell her! Don't you understand? She'll never know you
_didn't_ come home with the others!"

Ted had a scrupulous personal honor, a pride, as it were, in his
integrity. He told the truth about his own transgressions and paid the
piper without complaint. But for others his truth was sometimes
equivocal, his morality comfortably lax. And these lapses from grace
on his part always filled Sheila with a shocked dismay.

"Oh," she protested, "I couldn't do that! Why, it would be _lying_!"

"Fiddlesticks! Where's the lie? You wouldn't _tell_ one!"

"It _would_ be a lie," persisted Sheila. "It would be a lie if I let
her think what wasn't so."

"Fiddlesticks!" he pronounced again. But he looked at her approvingly,
nevertheless. Sheila was always "square," and he liked her the better
for it. "Well, you go along with Charlotte, then," he added
regretfully.

But he had tempted her more successfully than he knew, and her mind was
busily working toward some compromise with her conscience. She cast an
eye in the direction Charlotte had taken, and that glance decided her.
"Charlotte's out of sight," she said. "I--I believe I'll stay,
Ted--_but I'll tell when I get home_!"

It was late afternoon when they did at last start homew