She turned the key and followed the halting figure across the room.
"What are you afraid of ?" she asked.
"When mother and I talk things over," he said, "we always do it where no one can see or hear.

It's the only way to be safe." "Safe from what ?" His eyes fixed themselves on her as he answered her almost sullenly.
"Safe from people who might listen and go and tell that we had been talking." In his thwarted-looking, odd child-face there was a shade of appeal not wholly hidden by his evident wish not to be boylike.

Betty felt a desire to kneel down suddenly and embrace him, but she knew he was not prepared for such a demonstration.

He looked like a creature who had lived continually at bay, and had learned to adjust himself to any situation with caution and restraint.
"Sit down, Ughtred," she said, and when he did so she herself sat down, but not too near him.
Resting his chin on the handle of a crutch, he gazed at her almost protestingly.
"I always have to do these things," he said, "and I am not clever enough, or old enough.

I am only eleven." The mention of the number of his years was plainly not apologetic, but was a mere statement of his limitations.