Intervene or let them work it out themselves?

I guess the neighbor boy that my girls play with on a regular basis has been ditching my girls when the boys would come out. I've always suspected that he only wanted to play with them when the other little boys weren't out, and they've seemed okay with that, so I've never said anything about it.

Today, he came over, knocked on my door, and asked me if the girls could come out to talk. I said sure, and after about 3 minutes, they came back in bawling. They told me he said they were too young to have any fun with, and that he didn't ever want to play with them again.

My suspicion is that, since his birthday was yesterday, he suddenly feels "too old" to play with kids a couple years younger than he is.

Well, he came over to the door again as I was typing this, and already asked them to come back out. I kind of called him out on it. I told him that my daughter had been crying for an hour over it, and repeated back what they said, and he tried to come up with an obvious lie about what "really happened". I don't usually take a child's word over another unless I am sure of what really happened, but my girls were crushed over it, they were very specific about what was said, and he was stumbling over his words, trying to stutter through his story, eyes darting all over the place, etc. I told them that they were in for the night, and left it at that.

Would you have done/said that much to intervene? More? Less? Is this something I should just allow the kids to work out themselves. My girls don't react too strongly to much, because I truly do very little to shelter them or immediately side with them...but they were really heartbroken, and I thought it was cruel to make a special trip over to the house JUST to tell them something like that.

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