He kissed her again. "No; you can't go to Italy, Skipper. That's settled."

"Then—what are we going to do, Jimsy dear?"

"Why, we'll just get—" his bright face clouded over. "Good Lord, I'm talking like a nit-wit. We've got to wait, that's all. What could I do now? Run up alleys with groceries? Take care of gardens?"

"Not my garden! You don't know a tulip from a cauliflower!"

"No, I'll have to learn to do something with my head and my hands,—not just my legs! I guess life isn't all football, Skipper."

"But I guess it's all a sort of game, Jimsy, and we have to 'play' it! And it wouldn't be playing the game for our people or for ourselves to do something silly and reckless. This thing—caring for each other—is the wisest, biggest thing in our lives, and we've got to keep it that, haven't we?"

He nodded solemnly. "That's right, Skipper. We have. I guess we'll just have to grit our teeth and wait—gee—three years, anyway, till I'm twenty-one! That's the deuce of a long time, isn't it? Lord, why wasn't I born five years before you? Then it would be O. K. Loads of girls are married at eighteen."

"You weren't born five years before me because then it would have spoiled everything," said Honor, securely confident of the eternal rightness of the scheme of things. "You would have been marching around in overalls when I was born, and when I was ten you would have been fifteen, and you wouldn't have looked at me,—and now you'd be through college and engaged to some wonderful Stanford girl! No, it's perfectly all right as it is, Jimsy. Only, we've just got to be sensible."

"Well, I'll tell you one thing right now, Skipper, I'm not going to wait five or six years. I'm going to go two years to college, enough to bat a little more knowledge into my poor bean, and then I'm coming out and get a job,—and get you!" He illustrated the final achievement by catching her in his arms again.

When she could get her breath Honor said, "But we needn't worry about all of it now, dear. We haven't got to wait the four—or six years—all at once! Just a month, a week, a day at a time. And the time will fly,—you'll see! You'll have to work like a demon——"

"And you won't be there to help me!"

"And there'll be football all fall and baseball all spring, and theatricals, and we'll write to each other every day, won't we?"

"Of course. But I write such bone-headed boob letters, Skipper."

"I won't care what they're like, Jimsy, so long as you tell me things."

"Gee ... I'm going to be lost up there without you, Skipper."

"You'll have Carter, dear."

"I know. That'll help a lot. Honestly, I don't know how a fellow with a head like his puts up with me. He forgets more every night when he goes to sleep than I'll ever know. He's a wonder. Yes, it sure—will help a lot to have Carter. But it won't be you."

"Jimsy, have you told—your father?"

He nodded. "Last night. He was—he's been feeling great these last few days. He was sitting at his desk, looking over some old letters and papers, and I went in and—and told him."

"What did he say?"

"He didn't say anything at first. He just sat still for a long time, staring at the things he'd been reading. And then he got out a little old leather box that he said was my mother's and unlocked it and took out a ring." Jimsy thrust a hand deep into a trouser pocket and brought out a twist of tissue paper, yellowed and broken with age. He unwrapped it and laid a slender gold ring on Honor's palm.

"Jimsy!" It was an exquisite bit of workmanship, cunningly carved and chased, with a look of mellow age. There were two clasped hands,—not the meaningless models for wedding cakes, slim, tapering, faultless, but two cleverly vital looking hands, a man's and a woman's, the one rugged and strong, the other slender and firm, and the wrists, masculine and feminine, merging at the opposite side of the circle into one. "Oh ..." Honor breathed, "it's wonderful...."

"Yes. It's a very old Italian ring. It was my great-grandmother's, first. It always goes to the wife of the eldest son. My Dad says it's supposed to mean love and marriage and—and everything—'the endless circle of creation,' he said, when I asked him what it meant, but first he just said, 'Give this to your girl and tell her to hold hard. Tell her we're a bad lot, but no King woman ever let go.'"

Suddenly and without warning, as on the day when Stephen Lorimer had first read the Newbolt poem to them, Honor began to cry.

"Skipper! Skipper, dearest—" she was in the young iron clasp of his arms and his cheek was pressed down on her hair. "What is it? Skipper, tell me!"

"Oh," she sobbed, clinging to him, "I can't bear it, Jimsy! All the years—all those splendid men, all those faithful women, 'holding hard' against—against——"

He gathered her closer. "My Dad's the last of 'em, Skipper. He's the last 'Wild King.' It stops with him. I told him that, and he believes me. Do you believe me, Skipper?"

She stopped sobbing and looked up at him for a long moment, her wet eyes solemn, her breath coming in little gasps. Then—"I do believe you, Jimsy," she said. "I'll never stop believing you."

He kissed her gravely. "And now I'll show you the secret of the ring." He took it from her and pressed a hidden spring. The clasped hands slowly parted, revealing a small intensely blue sapphire. "That's for 'constancy,' my Dad says." He put it on her finger. "It just fits!"

"Yes. And it just fits—us, too, Jimsy. The jewel hidden ... the way we must keep our secret. Muzzie won't let me wear it here, but I'll wear it the minute I leave here,—and every minute of my life. It was wonderful for your father to let us have it—when we're so young and have so long to wait!"

"He said—you know, he was different from anything he's ever been before, Skipper, more—more like his old self, I guess—he said it would help us to wait."

"It will," said Honor, contentedly, tucking her hand into his again. They sat silently then, looking out at the bright sea.



CHAPTER VII

Honor was surprised and pleased to find how little she minded living abroad, after all. They had arrived, the boy and herself, in the months between their secret understanding and their separation, at the amazed conclusion that it was going to be easier to be apart until that bright day when they might be entirely and forever together. At the best, three interminable years stretched bleakly between them and marriage; they had to mark time as best they could. She liked Florence, she liked the mountainous Signorina, her stepfather's friend, and she liked her work. If it had not been for Jimsy King she would without doubt have loved it, but there was room in her simple and single-track consciousness for only one engrossing and absorbing affection. She wrote to him every day, bits of her daily living, and mailed a fat letter every week, and every week or oftener came his happy scrawl from Stanford. Things went with him there as they had gone at L. A. High,—something less, naturally, of hero worship and sovereignty, but a steadily rising tide of triumph. He chronicled these happenings briefly and without emphasis. "Skipper dear," he would write in his crude and hybrid hand, "I've made the Freshman team all right and it's a pretty fair to middling bunch and I guess we'll stack up pretty well against the Berkeley babes from what I hear, and they made me captain. It seems kind of natural, and I have three fellows from the L. A. team,—Burke and Estrada and Finley."

He was madly rushed by the best fraternities and chose naturally the same one as Carter Van Meter,—one of the best and oldest and most powerful. He made the baseball team in the spring, and the second fall the San Francisco papers' sporting pages ran his picture often and hailed him as the Cardinal's big man. Honor read hungrily every scrap of print which came to her,—her stepfather taking care that every mention of Jimsy King reached her. It was in his Sophomore year that he played the lead in the college play and Honor read the newspapers limp and limber—"James King in the lead did a remarkable piece of work." "King, Stanford's football star, surprised his large following by his really brilliant performance." "Well-known college athlete demonstrates his ability to act." Honor knew the play and she could shut her eyes and see him and hear him in the hero's part, and her love and pride warmed her like a fire.

She had not gone home that first summer. Mildred Lorimer and Carter's mother managed that, between them, in spite of Stephen's best efforts, and, that decided, Jimsy King went with his father to visit one of the uncles at his great hacienda in old Mexico. Mrs. Van Meter and her son spent his vacation on the Continent and had Honor with them the greater part of the time. She met their steamer at Naples and Carter could see the shining gladness of her face long before he could reach her and speak to her, and he glowed so that his mother's eyes were wet.

"Honor!" He had no words for that first moment, the fluent Carter. He could only hold both her hands and look at her.

But Honor had words. She gave back the grip of his hands and beamed on him. "Carter! Carter, dear! Oh, but it's wonderful to see you! It's next best to having Jimsy himself!"

Marcia Van Meter winced with sympathy, but her son managed himself very commendably. They went to Sorrento first, and stayed a week in a mellow old hotel above the pink cliffs, and the boy and girl sat in the garden which looked like a Maxfield Parrish drawing and drove up to the old monastery at Deserto and wandered through the silk and coral shops and took the little steamer across to Capri for the day while Mrs. Van Meter rested from the crossing. She was happier that summer than she had been since Carter's little-boy days, for she was giving him, in so far as she might, what he wanted most in all the world, and she saw his courage and confidence growing daily. She was a little nervous about Roman fever, so they left Italy for Paris, and then went on to Switzerland, and for the first few days she was supremely content with her choice,—Carter gained color and vigor in the sun and snow, and Honor glowed and bloomed, but she presently saw her mistake. Switzerland was not the place to throw Honor and Carter together,—Switzerland filled to overflowing with knickerbockered, hard muscled, mountain climbing men and women; Honor who should have been climbing with the best of them; who would be, if Jimsy King were with them; and her son, in the smart incongruities of his sport clothes ... limping, his proud young head held high.

They found Miss Bruce-Drummond at Zermatt, brown as a berry and hard as nails with her season's work, and she was heartily glad to see Honor.

"Well, my dear,—fancy finding you here! Your stepfather wrote me you were studying in Florence and I've been meaning to write you. What luck, your turning up now! The friend who came on with me has been called home, and you shall do some climbs with me!"

"Shall I?" Honor wanted to know of her hostess, but it was Carter who answered.

"Of course! Don't bother about us,—we'll amuse ourselves well enough while you're hiking,—won't we, Mater?" He was charming about it and yet Honor felt his keen displeasure.

"Yes, do go, dear," said Mrs. Van Meter, quickly. "Make the most of it, for I think we'll be moving on in a very few days. I—I haven't said anything about it because you and Carter have been so happy here, but the altitude troubles me.... I've been really very wretched."

"Oh," said Honor penitently, "we'll go down right away, Mrs. Van Meter,—to-day! Why didn't you tell us?"

"It hasn't been serious," said Carter's mother, conscientiously, "it's just that I know I will be more comfortable at sea level." It was entirely true; she would be more comfortable at sea level or anywhere else, so long as she took Carter out of that picture and framed him suitably again. "But we needn't hurry so madly, dear. Suppose we go on Friday? That will give you a day with your friend." She sent Carter for her cloak and Honor and the Englishwoman strolled to the end of the veranda.

"I don't believe we ought to wait even a day, if she feels the altitude so," said Honor, troubled. "She's really very frail."

"I expect she can stick it a day," said Miss Bruce-Drummond, calmly. "She looks fit enough. But—I say—where's the other one? Where's your boy?"

The warm and happy color flooded the girl's face. "Jimsy is in Mexico with his father, visiting their relatives there on a big ranch."

"You haven't thrown him over, have you?"

"Thrown Jimsy over? Thrown—" she stopped and drew a long breath. "I could just as easily throw myself over. Why, we—belong! We're part of each other. I just—can't think of myself without thinking of Jimsy—or of Jimsy without thinking of me." She said it quite simply and steadily and smiled when she finished.

"I see," said the novelist. "Yes. I see. But you're both frightfully young, aren't you? I expect your people will make you wait a long time, won't they?"

"Well," said Honor, earnestly, "we're going to try our very best to wait three years,—three from the time when we found out we were in love with each other, you know,—two years longer now. Then we'll be twenty-one." She spoke as if every one should be satisfied then, if they dragged out separate existences until they had attained that hoary age, and Miss Bruce-Drummond, hard on forty-one, grinned with entire good nature.

"And I daresay they'll keep you over here all the while,—not let you go home for holidays, for fear you might lose your heads and bolt for Gretna Green?"

"Mercy, no!" Her eyes widened, startled. "I shall go home for all summer next year! I meant to go this year, but Muzzie thought I ought to stay, to be with Carter and Mrs. Van Meter, when they'd made such lovely plans for me,—and it was really all right, this time, because Jimsy ought to be with his father on the Mexican trip." Her smooth brow registered a fleeting worry over James King the elder. "But next summer it'll be home, and Catalina Island, and Jimsy!"

But it wasn't home for her next summer, after all. Mildred Lorimer decided that she wanted three months on the Continent with her husband and her daughter.

"Right," said Stephen Lorimer, amiably, "so long as we take the boy along."

"You mean Rodney?" she wanted to know, not looking at him. (Rodney was the youngest Lorimer.)

"I mean Jimsy King, naturally, as you quite well know, Sapphira," he answered, pulling her down beside him on the couch and making her face him.

"Stephen, I don't think Mr. King can afford to send him."

"Then we'll take him."

"Jimsy wouldn't let us. He is very proud,—I admire it in him."

"Do you, my dear? Then, can't you manage to admire some of his other nice young virtues and graces?"

"I do, Stephen. I give the boy credit for all he is, but——"

"But you don't intend to let him marry your daughter if by the hookiest hook and crookedest crook you can prevent it. I observed your Star Chamber sessions with Mrs. Van Meter last year; I saw you wave her and her son hopefully away; I observed, smiling with intense internal glee, that you welcomed them back with deep if skillfully dissembled disappointment. Top Step, God love her, sat tight. Don't you know your own child yet, Mildred? Don't you know the well and favorably known chemical action of absence on young and juicy hearts? Don't you know"—he broke off to stare at her, flushed and a little breathless as she always was in discussions and unbelievably youthful and beautiful still, and finished in quite another key—"that you're getting positively lovelier with each ridiculous birthday—and your aged and infirm spouse more and more besottedly in love with you?"

She did not melt because she was tremendously in earnest. She was pledged in her deepest heart to break up what she felt was Honor's silly sentimentality—sentimentality with a dark and sinister background of mortgages and young widows and Wild Kings and shabby, down-at-the-heel houses and lawns.

"Woman," said Stephen Lorimer, "did you hear what I said? It was a rather neat speech, I thought. However, as you did not give it the rapt attention it merited I will now repeat it, with appropriate gestures." He caught her in his arms as youthfully as Jimsy might have done with Honor, and told her again, between kisses. "You lovely, silly, stubborn thing, kiss your wise husband once more in a manner expressive of your admiration for his unfailing sapience, and he will then, with surprising agility for one of his years, lope across the intervening lawn and tell James King that his son goes to Europe with us in June." He grinned back at her from the door. "You'll do your little worst to prevent it, my dear, that I know, but Jimsy King goes with us!"

Honor and Jimsy wrote each other rapturously on receipt of the news, but they were not fluent or expressive, either of them, and they could only underline and put in a reckless number of exclamation points. "Gee," wrote Jimsy King, "isn't it immense? Skipper, I can't tell you how I feel—but, by golly, I can show you when I get there!"

And Honor, reading that line, grew rosily pink to the roots of her honey-colored hair and flung herself into an hour of practice with such fire and fervor that the Signorina came and beamed in the doorway.

"So," she nodded. "News? Good or bad?"

"Good," said Honor, swinging round on the piano stool. "The best in the world!"

"So? Well, it does not greatly matter which, my small one. It does not signify so much whether one feels joy or grief, so long as one feels. To feel ... that is to live, and to live is to sing!"

Honor sprang up and ran to her and put her arm as far around her as it would go. She was a delicious person to hug, the Signorina, warm and soft and smelling faintly of rare and costly scents.

"So?" said the great singer again. "It is of some comfort, then, to embrace so much of fatness, when your arms ache to feel muscles and hard flesh? There, there, my good small one," she patted her with a puffy and jeweled hand, "I jest, but I rejoice. It is all good for the voice, this."

"Signorina," said Honor, honestly, "I've told you and told you, but you don't seem to believe me, that I'm only studying to fill up the time until they'll let me marry Jimsy. I love it, of course, and I'll always keep it up, as much as I can without neglecting more important things, but——"

"Mother of our Lord," said the Italian, lifting her hands to heaven, "'more important things' says this babe with the voice of gold, who, by the grace of God and my training might one day wake the world!"

"More important to me," said Honor, firmly. "I know it must seem silly to you, Signorina, dear, but if you were in love——"

"Mothers of all the holy saints," said the fat woman, lifting her hands again, "when have I not been in love? Have I not had three husbands already, and another even now dawning on the horizon, not to mention—but there, that is not for pink young ears. I will say this to you, small one. Every woman should marry. Every artist must marry. Run home, then, in another year, and wed the young savage, and have done with it. Stay a year with him—two if you like—until there is an infant savage. Then you shall come back and give yourself in earnest to the business of singing."

But Honor, scarlet-cheeked, shook her head. "I can't imagine coming back from—from that, Signorina!" Her eyes envisaged it and the happy color rose and rose in her face. "But I've got a good lesson for you to-day! Shall I begin?"

"Begin, then, my good small one," said her teacher indulgently, "and for the rest, we shall see what we shall see!"

Honor flung herself into her work as never before, and counted the weeks and days and hours until the time when Jimsy should come to her, and Jimsy, finishing up a sound, triumphant Sophomore year, saw everything through a hazy front drop of his Skipper on the pier at Naples.

But Jimsy King did not go abroad with Mr. and Mrs. Lorimer, after all, and Honor did not see him through the whole dragging summer. Stephen Lorimer, sick with disappointment for his stepdaughter, would have found relief in fixing the blame on his wife, for her lovely and complacent face mirrored her satisfaction at the turn of events, but he could hardly hold her responsible. James King was taken suddenly, alarmingly ill with pneumonia two days before they left Los Angeles to catch their steamer at New York, and it was manifestly impossible for his son to leave him. The doctors gave scant hope of his recovery.

Therefore, it was Carter Van Meter who took Jimsy's ticket off his hands and Jimsy's place in the party and the summer plans, leaving his happy mother to spend three flutteringly hopeful months alone.



CHAPTER VIII

James King, greatly to the surprise of his physicians, did not die, but he hovered on the brink of it for many thin weeks and his son gave up his entire vacation to be with him. The letters he sent Honor were brief bulletins of his father's condition, explosive regrets at having to give up his summer with her, but Jimsy was not a letter writer. In order properly to fill up more than a page it was necessary for him to be able to say, "Had a bully practice to-day," or, "Saw old Duffy last night and he told me all about—" He was not good at producing epistolary bulk out of empty and idle days. Stephen Lorimer, often beside Honor when she opened and read these messages in English Cathedral towns or beside Scotch lakes, ached with sympathy for these young lovers under his benevolent wing because of their inability to set themselves down on paper. He knew that his stepdaughter was very nearly as limited as the boy.

"Ethel," he said to Miss Bruce-Drummond who had met up with them for a week-end at Stirling, "those poor children are so pitifully what Gelett Burgess calls 'the gagged and wordless folk'; it would be so much easier—and safer—for them if they belonged to his 'caste of the articulate.'"

She nodded. "Yes. It's rather frightful, really, to separate people who have no means of communication. Especially when—" she broke off, looking at Carter who was pointing out to Honor what he believed to be the Field of Bannockburn.

Stephen Lorimer shook his head. "No danger there," he said comfortably. "Top Step is sorry for him—a creature of another, paler world ... infinitely beneath her bright and beamish boy's. No, I feel a lot safer to have Carter with her than with Jimsy King."

The Englishwoman stared. "Really?"

"Yes. I daresay I exaggerate, but I've always seen something sinister about that youth."

Miss Bruce-Drummond looked at Carter Van Meter and observed the way in which he was looking at Honor. "He wants her frightfully, doesn't he, poor thing?"

"He wants her frightfully but he isn't a poor thing in the very least. He is an almost uncannily clever and subtle young person for his years, with a very large income and a fanatically devoted mother behind him, and he's had everything he ever wanted all his life except physical perfection,—and my good Top Step."

"Ah, yes, but what can he do, after all?"

Honor's stepfather shrugged. "He knows that she would not be allowed to marry the lad if he went the way of the other 'Wild Kings,'—that she is too sound and sane to insist on it. And I think—I thought even in their High School days—that he deliberately steers Jimsy into danger."

"My word!" said the novelist, hotly. "What are you going to do about it, Stephen?"

"Watch. Wait. Stand ready. I shall make it my business to drop in at the fraternity house once or twice next season, when I go north to San Francisco,—and into other fraternity houses, and put my ear to the ground. And if I find what I fear to find I'll take it up with both the lads, face to face, and then I'll send for Honor."

"Right!" said Miss Bruce-Drummond, her fine, fresh-colored face glowing. "And I'll run down to Florence at the Christmas holidays and take her to Rome with me, shall I?"

"It will be corking of you, Ethel."

"I shall love doing it."

He looked at her appreciatively. She would love doing it; she loved life and people, Ethel Bruce-Drummond, and she was able therefore to put life and people, warm and living, on to her pages. She was as fit and hardy as a splendid boy, her cheeks round and ruddy, her eyes bright, her fine bare hands brown and strong, her sturdy ankles sturdier than ever in her heavy knitted woolen hose and her stout Scotch brogues. He had known and counted on her for almost twenty years—and he had married Mildred Carmody. "Ethel," he said, suddenly, "in that book of mine I mean to have——"

"Ah, yes, that book of yours, Stephen! Slothful creature! You know quite well you'll never do it."

"Never do it! Why,"—he was indignant—"I've got tons of it done already, in my head! It only wants writing down."

"Yes, yes," said his friend, penitently, "I make no doubt. It only wants writing down. Well?"

"I'm going to have a chapter on friendship, and insert a really novel idea. Friendship has never been properly praised,—begging pardon in passing of Mr. Emerson and his ilk. I'm going to suggest that it be given dignity and weight by having licenses and ceremonies, just as marriage has. It has a better right, you know, really. It's a much saner and more probable vow—to remain friends all one's life, than in love. In genuine friendship there is indeed no variableness, neither shadow or turning. You and I, now, might quite safely have taken out our friendship license and plighted our troth,—twenty years, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Miss Bruce-Drummond, gently, "it's twenty years, Stephen, and that's a quite beautiful idea. You must surely put it in your book, old dear." Her keen eyes, looking away across the ancient battlefields were a little less keen than usual, but Stephen Lorimer did not notice that because he was looking at his watch.

"Do you know it's nearly five, woman, and Mildred waiting tea for us at the Stirling Arms?" So he called to the boy and girl and fell into step beside his friend and swung down the hill to his tea and his wife, a little thrilled still, as he always would be to the day of his death, at being with her again after even the least considerable absence.

It seemed to Honor Carmody that three solid summers had been welded together for her soul's discipline that year; there were assuredly ninety-three endless days in July. She was not quite sure whether having Carter with them made it harder for her or easier. He was an accomplished traveler; things moved more smoothly for his presence, and—as she wrote Jimsy—he knew everything about everywhere. On the whole, it was pleasanter, more like home, more like the good days on South Figueroa Street, to have him about; she could sometimes almost cajole herself into thinking Jimsy must be there, too, in the next room, hurrying up the street, a little late for dinner, but there, near them. It was only when Carter talked to her of Jimsy that she grew anxious, even acutely unhappy. It wasn't, she would decide, thinking it over later, lying awake in the dark, so much what Carter had said—it was what he hadn't said in words. It was the thing that sounded in his voice, that was far back in his eyes.

"Yes," he would say, smiling in reminiscence, "that was a party! Nothing ever like it at Stanford before in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, they say. And old Jimsy—I wish you could have seen him! No, I don't really, for you wouldn't have approved and the poor old scout would have been in for a lecture, but it was——"

"Carter," Honor would interrupt, "do you mean, can you possibly mean that Jimsy—that he's—" She found she couldn't say it after all; she couldn't put it into the ugly definite words.

"Oh, nothing serious, Honor! Nothing for you to worry about! He has to do more or less as others do, a man of his prominence in college. It's unavoidable. Of course, it might be better if he could steer clear of that sort of thing altogether—" he would stop at a point like that and frown into space for a moment, as if remembering, weighing, considering, and Honor's heart would sink coldly. Then he would brighten again and lay a reassuring hand on her sleeve. "But you mustn't worry. Jimsy's got a level head on his shoulders, and he has too much at stake to go too far. He'll be all right in the end, Honor, I'm sure of that. And you know I'll always keep an eye on him!".

And Honor twisting on her finger the ring with the clasped hands and the hidden blue stone of constancy which she always wore except when her mother was with her, would manage a smile and say, "I know how devoted you are to him, Carter. You couldn't help it, could you?—Every one is. And you mean to help him; I know that. I am grateful. It's next best to being with him myself." Then, because she couldn't trust herself to talk very much about Jimsy, she would resolutely change the subject and Carter would write home to his hoping mother that Honor really seemed to be having a happy summer and to enjoy everything, and that she was not very keen to talk much about Jimsy.

He did not hear the talk she had with her stepfather the night before they were to sail for home. It came after her hour of fruitless pleading with her mother to be allowed to go back with them. Mildred Lorimer had stood firm, and Stephen had been silent and Carter had sided with Honor's mother.

"It really would be rather a shame, Honor,—much as we'd love having you with us on the trip home. You're coming on so wonderfully with your work, the Signorina says. She intends to have you in concert this winter, and coming home would spoil that, wouldn't it?" He was very sensible about it.

Honor had managed to ask Stephen to see her alone, after the rest had gone to their rooms. They were sailing from Genoa because they had wanted to bring Honor back to Italy and the Signorina had joined them at the port and would take the girl back to Florence with her. Honor went upstairs and came down again in fifteen minutes and found him waiting for her in the lounge.

He got up and came to meet her and took her hands into his solid and reassuring clasp. "This is pretty rough, Top Step. You don't have to tell me."

She did not, indeed. Her young face was drained of all its color that night and her eyes looked strained. It was mildly warm and the windows were open, but she was shivering a little. "Stepper, dear, I don't want to be a goose——"

"You're not, Top Step."

"But I'm anxious. When Jimsy gave me this ring, and told me what he had told his father—that he was not going to be another 'Wild King' and asked me if I believed him, I told him I'd never stop believing him, and I won't, Skipper. I won't!"

"Right, T. S."

"But—things Carter says,—things he doesn't say—Stepper, I think Jimsy needs me now."

The man was silent for a long moment. He could, of course, assert his authority or at least his power, since the girl was Mildred's child and not his, break with his good friend, the Signorina, and take Honor home. But, after all, what would that accomplish, unless she went to Stanford? He began to think aloud. "Even if you came home with us, Top Step, you wouldn't be near him, would you, unless you went to college? And you'd hardly care to do that now—to enter your Freshman year two years behind the boys."

"No."

"And if you stayed in Los Angeles—you might almost as well be here. The number of miles doesn't matter."

"But—perhaps Jimsy wouldn't stay at Stanford then. Oh, Stepper, dear, haven't we waited long enough?"

"He's only twenty, T. S."

She sighed. "Being young is the cruelest thing in the world!"

"You are blaspheming!" said her stepfather, sternly. "T. S., that's the only stupid and wicked thing you've ever said in the years I've known you! Don't ever dare to say it—or think it—again! Being young is the most golden and glorious thing in the world! Being young—" he ran a worried hand over his thinning hair and sighed. "Ah, well, you'll know, some day. Meanwhile, girl, it looks as if you'd have to stick. That's your part in 'playing the game!' But I promise you this. I shall keep an eye on things for you; keep in touch with the boy, see him, hear from him, hear of him, and if the time comes when I believe that his need of you is instant and vital, I'll write—no, I'll cable you to come."

"Stepper!" The comfort in her eyes warmed him.

"It's a promise, Top Step"—he grinned,—"as you used to say when I first knew you—'cross-my-heart, hope-never-to-see-the-back-of-my-neck!' Now, hop along to bed,—and trust me!"

The lift in the little hotel put its head under its wing at ten-thirty and it was now almost eleven, so Honor set out on foot to do the three flights between her and her room. She ran lightly because she felt suddenly eased of a crushing burden; Stepper, good old Stepper, was on guard; Stepper was standing watch for her. There was a little writing-room and sun parlor on the second floor, dim now, with only one shaded light still burning, and as she crossed it a figure rose so startlingly from a deep chair that she smothered a small cry.

"It's I," said Carter. He stepped between her and the stairway.

"Cartie! You did make me jump!" Honor smiled at him; she was so cozily at peace for the moment that she had an increased tenderness for their frail friend. "It was so still in the hotel it might be the 'night before Christmas,'—'not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.' You'd better go to bed," she added, maternally. "You look pale and tired."

"I'm not tired," he said shortly. He continued to stand between her and the stairs.

"Well—I'm sleepy," she said, moving to pass him. "Good——"

But Carter was quicker. He caught hold of her by her arms and held her in a tense grip. "Honor, Honor, Honor!" he said, choking.

"Why,—Cartie! You—please—" She tried to free herself.

"Honor, I can't help it. I've got to speak. I've got to know. Don't you—couldn't you—care at all for me, Honor?"

"Carter! Not—not the way you mean! Of course I'm fond of you, but——"

"I don't want that!" He shook her, roughly, and his voice was harsh. "I want you to care the way I care. And I'm going to make you!"

"Carter," she was not angry with him, only unhappy, "do you think this is fair? Do you think you're being square with Jimsy?"

"No," he said, hotly, "and I don't care. I don't care for anything but you. Honor, you don't love Jimsy King. I know it. It's just a silly, boy-and-girl thing—you must realize that, now you're away from him! Your mother doesn't want you to marry him. What can he give you or do for you? And he'll go the way of his father and all his family—I've tried to lie to you, but I'm telling you the truth now, Honor. He's drinking already, and he'll grow worse and worse. Give him up, Honor! Give him up before he spoils your life, and let me—" with all his strength, far more than she would have thought it possible for him to have, he tried to pull her into his arms, to reach her lips.

But Jimsy's Skipper, for all her two soft years in Europe, had not lost her swimming, hiking, driving, out-of-door vigor, and her muscles were better than his.

"I'm going to kiss you," said Carter, huskily. "I've wanted to kiss you for years ... always ... and I'm going to kiss you now!"

"No, you're not, Carter," said Honor. She got her arms out of his grasp and caught his wrists in her hands. She was very white and her eyes were cold. "You see? You're weak. You're weak in your arms, Carter, just as you're weak in your—in your character, in your friendship! And I despise weakness." She dropped his wrists and saw him sit down, limply, in the nearest chair and cover his face with his hands. Then she walked to the stairs and went up without a backward glance.

He was pallid and silent at breakfast next morning and Honor was careful not to look at him. It was beginning to seem, in the eight o'clock sunlight, as if the happening of the night before must have been a horrid dream, and her sense of anger and scorn gradually gave way to pity. After all ... poor old Carter, who had so little ... Jimsy, who had so much! What Carter had said in his tirade about Jimsy's drinking she did not believe; it was simply temper; angry exaggeration. Mildred Lorimer, looking at Carter's white face and the gray shadows under his eyes and observing Honor's manner toward him, sighed audibly and was a little distant when she bade her daughter farewell. She loved her eldest born devotedly, but there were moments when she couldn't help but feel that Honor was not very much of a comfort to her....

Stephen held the girl's hands hard and looked deep into her eyes. "Remember what I said, Top Step, 'Cross-my-heart!'"

"I'll remember, Stepper, dear! Thanks!" She turned to Carter and held out a steady hand. "My love to your mother, Carter, and I do hope you'll have a jolly crossing."

"Will you read this, please?" He lifted his heavy eyes to her face and slipped a note into her hand. She nodded and tucked it into her blouse. Then she stood with the Signorina, on the pier, waving, and with misty eyes watching the steamer melting away and away into the blue water. When she was alone she read the little letter.

"Dear Honor—" Carter had written in a ragged scrawl unlike his usual firm hand—"Will you try to forgive me? You are the kindest and least bitter person in the world; I know you can forgive me. But—and this will be harder—can you forget last night? I promise to deserve it, if you will. Will you pretend to yourself that it never happened, and just remember the good days we've had this summer, and that—in spite of my losing my head—I'm your friend, and Jimsy's friend? Will you, Honor?"

And Honor Carmody, looking with blurred eyes at the sea, wished she might wave again and reassuringly to the boy on the steamer, facing the long voyage so drearily. Then she realized that she still could, in a sense, wave to him. The steamer stopped at Naples and she could send a telegram to him there, and he would not have to cross the wide ocean under that guilty weight. She put on her hat and sped to the telegraph office, and there, because his note had ended with a question—had been indeed all a question—and because she was the briefest of feminine creatures, and because the Signorina was waiting luncheon for her and did not enjoy waiting, she wired the one word, "Yes," and signed her name.

"Carter got a telegram," said Mildred Lorimer to her husband. "I wonder what it could have been. Did he say?"

"He didn't mention it," said Stephen. "About those silk shirts which weren't finished, I daresay. Certainly not bad news, by the look of him."

When Carter Van Meter reached Los Angeles and his tearfully happy mother he drew her into the library and closed the door. "Mater," he said with an odd air of intense repressed excitement, "I'm going to show you something, but you must promise me on your honor not to breathe it to a living soul, least of all, Mrs. Lorimer."

"Oh, dearest," gasped his mother, "I promise faithfully——"

He took Honor's telegram out of his wallet and unfolded it and smoothed it out for her to read the single word it contained. Then, at her glad cry, "Sh ... Mater! It isn't—exactly—what you think. I can't explain now. But it's a hope; it may—I believe it will, one day—lead to the thing we both want!" He folded it again carefully into its creases and put it back into his wallet and he was breathing hard.



CHAPTER IX

Ethel Bruce-Drummond was better than her word. She did not wait for the Christmas holidays but went down to Florence early in December for Honor's first concert, and she wrote many pages to Stephen Lorimer.

Of course you know by this time that the concert was a success—you'll have had Honor's modest cable and the explosive and expensive one from the fat lark! They are sending you translations from the Italian papers, and clippings in English, and copies of some of the notes she's had from the more important musical people, and I really can't add anything to that side of it. You know, my dear Stephen, when it comes to music I'm confessedly ignorant,—not quite, perhaps, like that fabled countryman of mine who said he could not tell whether the band were playing "God Save the Weasel" or "Pop Goes the Queen," but bad enough in all truth. Therefore, I keep cannily out of all discussion of Honor's voice. I gather, however, that it has surprised every one, even the Signorina, and that there is no doubt at all about her making a genuine success if she wants to hew to the line. She has had, I hear, several rather unusual offers already. But of course she hasn't the faintest intention of doing anything in the world but the thing her heart is set upon. It's rather pathetic, really. There's something a little like Trilby about her; she does seem to be singing under enchantment. What she really is like, though, is a lantern-jawed young Botticelli Madonna. She's lost a goodish bit of flesh, I should say, and her color's not so high, and she might easily have walked out of one of the canvases in the Pitti or the Ufizzi, or the Belli Arti. Her hair is Botticelli hair, and that "reticence of the flesh" of which one of your American novelists speaks—Harrison, isn't it?—and that faint austerity.

She sang quantities of arias and groups of songs of all nations, and at the end she did some American Indian things,—the native melodies themselves arranged in modern fashion. I expect you know them. The words are very simple and touching and the Italian translations are sufficiently funny. Well, the very last of all was something about a captive Indian maid, and a young chap here who clearly adores her and whom she hasn't even taken in upon her retina played a wailing, haunting accompaniment on the flute. As nearly as I can remember it went something like:

From the Land of the Sky Blue Water They brought a captive maid. Her eyes were deep as the—(I can't remember what, Stephen) But she was not afraid. I go to her tent in the evening And woo her with my flute, But she dreams of the Sky Blue Water, And the captive maid is mute.

My dear Stephen, I give you my word that I very nearly put my nose in the air and howled. She is a captive maid—captive to her talent and the fat song-bird and her mother's ambition and yours, and her mother's determination not to let her marry her lad, and to that Carter chap, and the boy playing the flute—the whole network of you,—but she's dreaming of the Sky Blue Water, and dreaming is doing with that child. You'd best make up your minds to it, and settle some money on them and marry them off. My word, Stephen, is there so much of it lying about in the world that you can afford to be reckless with it? I arrived too late to see her before the concert, and I went behind—together with the bulk of the American and English colonies—directly it was over. She was tremendously glad to see me; I was a sort of link, you know. When I started in to tell her how splendidly she'd sung and how every one was rejoicing she said, "Yes,—thanks—isn't every one sweet? But did Stepper write you that Jimsy was 'Varsity Captain this year, and that they beat Berkeley twelve to five? And that Jimsy made both touchdowns? Do you remember that game you saw with us—and how Jimsy ran down the field and shook hands with the boy who'd scored on us? And how that gave every one confidence again, and we won? We always won!"—and standing there with her arms full of flowers and all sorts of really important people waiting to pat her on the head, she hummed that old battle song:

You can't beat L. A. High! You can't beat L. A. High!

and her eyes filled up with tears and she gave me her jolly little grin and said, "Oh, Miss Bruce-Drummond, I can hardly wait to get back to real living again!"

Honor was honestly happy over her success. It was good to satisfy—and more than satisfy—the kind Signorina and all the genial and interested people she had come to know there; to send her program and her clippings home to her mother; it was jolly to be asked out to luncheon and dinner and tea and to be made much of; it was best of all to have something tangible to give up for Jimsy. If she had failed, going back to him and settling quietly down with him would have seemed like running to sanctuary; now—with definite promises and hard figures offered her—it was more than a gesture of renunciation. She could understand adoring a life of that sort if she hadn't Jimsy; as it was she listened sedately to the Signorina's happy burblings and said at intervals:

"But you know, Signorina dear, that I'm going to give it up and be married next year?"

"You cannot give it up, my poor small one. It will not give you up. It has you, one may truly say, by the throat!"

There was no use in arguing with her. The interim had to be filled until summer and home. She would do, docilely, whatever the Signorina wished.

Jimsy was happy and congratulatory about her concert but he took it no more seriously than Honor herself. His letters were full, in those days, of the unrest at Stanford. Certain professors had taken a determined stand against drinking; there was much agitation and bitterness on both sides. Jimsy was all for freedom; he resented dictation; he could hoe his own row and so could other fellows; the faculty had no right to treat them like a kindergarten. Honor answered calmly and soothingly; she managed to convey without actually setting it down on the page that Jimsy King of all people in the world should take care not to ally himself with the "wets," and he wrote back that he was keeping out of the whole mess.

It came, therefore, as a fearful shock, the letters and newspapers' account of the expelling of James King of Los Angeles, 'Varsity Captain and prominent in college theatricals, from Stanford University for marching in a parade of protest against the curtailing of drinking! She was alone in her room when she opened her mail and she sat very still for minutes with her eyes shut, her fingers gripping the tiny clasped hands on her ring. At last, "I'll never stop believing in you," she said, almost aloud.

Then she read Jimsy's own version of it. She always kept his letter for the last, childishly, on the nursery theorem of "First the worst, second the same, last the best of all the game."

"Skipper dearest," he wrote, in a hasty and stumbling scrawl, "I'm so mad I can hardly see to write. I'd have killed that prof if it hadn't been for Carter. This is how it happened. I'd been keeping out of the whole mess as I told you I would. That night I was digging out something at the Library and on my way back to the House I saw a gang of fellows in a sort of parade, and some one at the end caught hold of me and dragged me in. I asked him what the big idea was and he said he didn't know, and I was sleepy and when we came to the House I dropped out and went in. I wasn't in it ten minutes and I didn't even know what it was about. But when they called for every one who was in the parade next day I had to show up, of course. Well, they asked me about it and I told them just how it happened, and they said all right, then, I could go. I was surprised and thankful, I can tell you, because they'd been chopping off heads right and left, some of the best men in college. Well, just as I was going out through the door the old prof called me back and said he had one more thing to ask me. Did I consider that his committee was absolutely right and justified in everything they'd done? Well, Skipper, what could I say? I said just what you'd have said and what you'd have wanted me to say—that I did think they had been too severe and in some cases unjust and they canned me for it."

There was a letter from Stephen Lorimer, grave and distressed, substantiating everything that Jimsy had written. (He had taken the first train north and gone into the matter thoroughly with the men at the fraternity house, simmering with red rage, and the committee, regretful but adamant.) The college career, the gay, brilliant, adored college career of Jimsy King was at an end. Honor's stepfather had taken great care to have the real facts in Jimsy's case printed—he sent the clipping from the Los Angeles paper—and he had spent an evening with James King, setting forth the truth of the case. But the fact remained for the majority of people, gaining in sinister weight with every repetition, that the last of the "Wild Kings" had been expelled from Stanford University for drinking.

"Top Step," her stepfather wrote, "I'm sick with rage and indignation. Your mother is taking it very hard—as is most every one else. 'Expelled' is not a pretty word. I'm doing my level best to put the truth before the public, to show that your boy is really something of a hero in this matter, in that he might be snugly safe at this moment if he had been willing to tell a politic lie. You'll be unhappy over this, T. S., that's inevitable, but—I give you my word—you need not hang your head. Jimsy played the game."

Carter, who had written seldom since the happening of the summer in spite of her kind and casual replies to his letters, sent her now six reassuring pages. She was not to worry. Jimsy was really doing very well, as far as the drinking went, and he—Carter—would not let him do anything foolish or desperate in his indignation. Three times he repeated that she must not be anxious. A dozen times in the letter he showed her where she might well be anxious. The word beat itself in upon her brain until she could endure it no longer, and she went out through the pretty streets of Florence to the cable office and sent Stephen Lorimer one of her brief and urgent messages, "Anxious." Two days later she had his answer and it was as short as her own had been, "Come."

There was a stormy scene with the Signorina. The waves of her fury rolled up and up and broke, crashing, over Honor's rocklike calm. At last, breathless, her fat face mottled with temper, "Go, then," said the singer, and went out of the room with heavy speed and slammed the door resoundingly. But she went with Honor to her steamer at Naples and embraced her forgivingly. "Go with God," she wept. "Live a little; it is best, perhaps. Then, my good small one, come back to me."

Like all simple and direct persons Honor found relief in action. The packing of her trunks and bags, the securing of tickets, cabling, had all given her a sense of comfort. They were tangible evidences of her progress toward Jimsy. The ocean trip was difficult; there was nothing to do. Nevertheless the sea's large calm communicated itself to her; for the greater portion of the voyage she was at peace. The situation with Jimsy must have been grave for her stepfather to think it necessary to send for her, but nothing could be so bad that she could not right it when she was actually with Jimsy. She would never leave him again, she told herself.

Feyther an' mither may a' gey mad, But whistle an' I'll come to ye, my lad!

Her mother, her poor, lovely mother, to whom she had been always such a disappointment, would be mad enough in all conscience, but Stepper would stand by. And nothing—no thing, no person, mattered beside Jimsy. Friends of her mother met her steamer in New York and put her on her train, and friends of Stephen Lorimer met her in Chicago and drove and dined her and saw her off on the Santa Fe. She began to have at once a warm sense of the West and home. The California poppies on the china in the dining-car made her happy out of all proportion. When they picked up the desert she relaxed and settled back in her seat with a sigh and a smile. The blessed brown, the delicious dryness! The little jig-saw hills standing pertly up against the sky; the tiny, low-growing desert flowers; the Indian villages in the distance, the track workers' camps close by with Mexican women and babies waving in the doorways; even a lean gray coyote, loping homeward, looking back over his shoulder at the train, helped to make up the sum of her joy. The West! How had she endured being away from it so long?—From its breadth and bigness, its sweep and space and freedom? She would never go away again. She and Jimsy would live here always, a part of it, belonging.

She stopped worrying. She was home, and Jimsy was waiting for her, and everything would come right.

At San Bernardino her mother and stepfather and her brothers came on board, surprising her. She had had a definite picture of them at the Santa Fe station in Los Angeles and their sudden appearance almost bewildered her. Her mother was a trifle tearful and reproachful but she was radiantly beautiful in her winter plumage. Stephen's handclasp was solid and comforting. Her little brothers had grown out of all belief, and her big brothers were heroic size, and they were all a little shy with her after the excitement of the first greetings. She wondered why Jimsy had not come out with them but at once she told herself that it was better so; it would have been hard for them to have their first hour together under so many eyes,—her mother's especially. Jimsy would be waiting at the station. But he was not. There were three or four of her girl friends with their arms full of flowers and one or two older boys who had finished college and were in business. They made much of her and she greeted them warmly for all the cold fear which had laid hold of her heart.

Then came the drive home, the surprising number of new business buildings, the amazing growth of the city toward Seventh Street, the lamentable intrusion of apartment houses and utilitarian edifices on beautiful old Figueroa. Honor looked and listened and commented intelligently, but—where was Jimsy?

The old house looked mellow and beautiful; the Japanese garden was a symphony of green plush sod and brilliant color—the Bougainvillaea almost smothering the little summerhouse and a mocking-bird who must be a grandson of the one of her betrothal night was singing his giddy heart out. Kada was waiting in the doorway, bowing stiffly, sucking in his breath, beaming; the cook just behind him, following him in sound and gesture, and the Japanese gardener, hat in hand, stood at the foot of the steps as she passed to say, "How-do? Veree glod! Veree glod! Tha's nize you coming home! Veree glod!"

Honor shook hands with them all. Then she turned to look at her stepfather and he followed her into his study.

"And we've got three new dogs, Honor, and two cats, and——" the smallest Lorimer besieged her at the door but she did not turn. She was very white now and trembling.

"Stepper, where is Jimsy?"

"Top Step, I—it's like Evangeline, rather, isn't it? He went straight through from the north without even stopping over here. He's gone to Mexico, to his uncle's ranch. And Carter got a leave of absence and went with him. I—you want the truth, don't you, Top Step?"

"Yes," said Honor.

"I'm afraid Jimsy rather ran amuck, in the bitterness of it all. His father took it very hard, in spite of my explanations to him, and wrote the boy a harsh letter; that started things, I fancy. That's when I cabled you. Carter telephoned his mother from the station here as they went through—they were on that special from San Francisco to Mexico City—and she told your mother that Jimsy was pretty well shot to pieces and that Carter didn't dare leave him alone."

"Didn't he write me?"

"He may have, of course, T. S., but there's nothing here for you. Mrs. Van Meter told Carter that I had cabled for you, so Jimsy knows."

"Yes." She stood still, her hat and cloak on, deliberating. "Do the trains go to Mexico every day, Stepper?"

"Why, yes, I believe they do, but you needn't wait to write, T. S. You can telegraph, and let——"

"I didn't mean about writing," said Honor, quietly. "I meant about going. Will you see if I can leave to-day, Stepper? Then I won't unpack at all, you see, and that will save time."

"Top Step, I know what this means to you, but—your mother.... Do you think you'd better?"

"I am going to Mexico," said Honor. "I am going to Jimsy."

"I'll find out about trains and reservations," said her stepfather.



CHAPTER X

For a few moments it moved and concerned Honor to see that she was the cause of the first serious quarrel between her mother and her stepfather. She was shocked to see her mother's wild weeping and Stephen Lorimer's grim jaw and to hear the words between them, but nothing could really count with her in those hours.

She took her mother in her arms and kissed her and spoke to her as she had to her little brothers in the years gone by, when they were hurt or sorry. "There, there, Muzzie dear! You can't help it. You must just stop caring so. It isn't your fault."

"People will think—people will say——" sobbed Mildred Lorimer.

"No one will blame you, dear. Every one knows what a trial I've always been to you."

"You have, Honor! You have! You've never been a comfort to me—not since you were a tiny child. And even then you were tomboyish and rough and queer."

"I know, Muzzie."

"I never heard of anything so brazen in all my life—running after him to Mexico—to visit people you never laid eyes on in all your days, utter strangers to you——"

"Jimsy's aunt and uncle, Muzzie."

"Utter strangers to you, forcing yourself upon them, without even telegraphing to know if they can have you——"

"No. I don't want Jimsy to know I'm coming."

"Where's your pride, Honor Carmody? When he's done such dreadful things and got himself expelled from college—a young man never lives that down as long as he lives!—and gone the way of all the 'Wild Kings,' and hasn't even written to you! That's the thing I can't understand—your running after him when he's dropped you—gone without a word or a line to you."

"He may have written, Muzzie. Letters are lost, you know, sometimes."

"Very seldom. Very seldom!" Mrs. Lorimer hotly proclaimed her faith in her government's efficiency. "I haven't lost three letters in forty years. No. He's jilted you, Honor. That's the ugly, shameful truth, and you're too blind to see it. If you knew the things Carter told his mother——"

"I don't want to know them, Muzzie."

"Of course you don't. That's just it! Blind! Blind and stubborn,—determined to wreck and ruin your whole life. And I must stand by, helpless, and see you do it. And the danger of the thing! With Diaz out of the country it's in the hands of the brigands. You'll be murdered ... or worse! Well—I know whose head your blood will be on. Not mine, thank Heaven!" There was very little that day, Mildred Lorimer felt, that she could thank Heaven for. It was not using her well.

"You know that Stepper will give me letters and telegraph ahead to the train people," said Honor. "And you mustn't believe all the hysterical tales in the newspapers, Muzzie dear. Here's Stepper now."

Stephen Lorimer was turning the car in at the driveway and a moment later he came into the house. He looked very tired but he smiled at his stepdaughter. "You're in luck, Top Step! I've just come from the Mexican Consulate. Met some corking people there, Mexicans, starting home to-morrow. They'll be with you until the last day of your trip! Mother and father and daughter,—Menendez is the name. Fascinating creatures. I've got your reservations, in the same car with them! Mildred," he turned to his wife, still speaking cheerily but begging for absolution with his tired eyes, "Senora Menendez—Menendez y Garcia is the whole name—sent her compliments and said to tell you she would 'guard your daughter as her own.' Doesn't that make you feel better about it?"

"She can defend her from bandits, I suppose?"

"My dear, there will be Senor Menendez, and they tell me the tales of violence are largely newspaper stuff,—as I've told you repeatedly. They will not only look after Honor all the way but they will telegraph to friends to meet her at Cordoba and drive her out to the Kings' rancho—I explained that she wished to surprise her friends. I don't mind telling you now that I should have gone with her myself if these people hadn't turned up."

"Stepper, dear!"

"And I'll go now, T. S., if you like."

"No, Stepper. I'd rather go alone, really—as long as I'm going to be so well looked after, and Muzzie needn't worry."

"'Needn't worry!'" said Mildred Lorimer, lifting her hands and letting them fall into her lap.

"Honestly, Muzzie, you needn't. If you do, it's because you let yourself. You must know that I'll be safe with these people."

"Your bodily safety isn't all," her mother, driven from that corner, veered swiftly. "The thing itself is the worst. The idea of it—when I think—after all that was in the paper, and every one talking about it and pitying you—pitying you, Honor!"

Her daughter got up suddenly and crossed over to her mother. "Every one but you, Muzzie? Can't you manage to—pity me—a little? I think I could stand being pitied, just now." It was indeed a day for being mothered. There was a need which even the best and most understanding of stepfathers could not fill, and Mildred Lorimer, looking into her white face and her mourning eyes melted suddenly and allowed herself to be cuddled and somewhat comforted but the heights of comforting Honor she could not scale.

"I think," said the girl at length, "I'd like to go up to my room and rest for a little while, if you don't mind, Muzzie,—and Stepper."

"Right, T. S. You'll want to be fresh for to-morrow."

"Do, dear—and I'll have Kada bring you up some tea. Rest until dinner time, because Mrs. Van Meter's dining with us," she broke off as she saw the small quiver which passed over her daughter's face and defended herself. "I had to ask her, Honor. I couldn't—in common decency—avoid it. She's so devoted to you, and think what she's done for you, Honor!"

Honor sighed. "Very well. But will you make her promise not to let Carter know I am coming?"

"My dear, how could she? You'll be there yourself as soon as a letter."

"She might telegraph." She turned to her stepfather. "Will you make her promise, Stepper?"

"I will, Top Step. Run along and rest. I daresay there will be some of the Old Guard in to see you this evening." He walked with her to the door and opened it for her. The small amenities of life had always his devoted attention. He smiled down at her. "Rest!" he said.

"I can rest, now, Stepper." It was true. When she reached the haven of her big blue room she found herself relaxed and relieved. Again the direct simplicity of her nature upheld her; she had not found Jimsy, but she would find him; she was going to him without a day's delay; she could "rest in action."

The soft-footed, soft-voiced Kada brought her a tea tray and arranged it deftly on a small table by the window. He smiled incessantly and kept sucking in his breath in his shy and respectful pleasure. "Veree glod," he said as the gardener had said before him, "Veree glod! I lige veree moach you comin' home! Now when thad Meestair Jeemsie comin' home too, happy days all those days!" He had brought her two kinds of tiny sandwiches which she had favored in the old tea times, chopped olives and nuts in one, cream cheese and dates in the other, and there was a plate of paper-thin cookies and some salted almonds and he had put a half blown red rose on the shining napkin.

"Kada, you are very kind. You always do everything so beautifully! How are you coming on with your painting?"

"Veree glod, thank-you-veree-moach!" He bowed in still delight.

"You must show me your pictures in the morning, Kada."

"Thank-you-veree-moach! Soon I have one thousand dollar save', can go study Art School."

"That's fine, Kada!"

"Bud"—his serene face clouded over—"veree sod leavin' theeze house! When you stayin' home an' thad Meestair Jeemsie here I enjoy to work theeze house; is merry from moach comedy!"'

He bowed himself out, still drawing in his breath and Honor smiled. "Merry from much comedy" the house had been in the old gay days; dark from much tragedy it seemed to-day. What would it be to her when she came back again? But, little by little, the old room soothed and stilled her. There were the sedate four-poster bed and the demure dresser and the little writing desk, good mahogany all of them; come by devious paths from a Virginia plantation; the cool blue of walls and rugs and hangings; the few pictures she had loved; three framed photographs of the Los Angeles football squad; a framed photograph of Jimsy in his class play; a bowl of dull blue pottery filled now with lavish winter roses. It was like a steadying hand on her shoulder, that sane and simple girlhood room.

The window gave on the garden and the King house beyond it. She wondered whether she should see James King before she went to Mexico. She felt she could hardly face him gently,—Jimsy's father who had failed him in his dark hour. In view of what his own life had been! She leaned forward and watched intently. It was the doctor's motor, the same seasoned old car, which was stopping before the house of the "Wild Kings," and she saw the physician hurry up the untidy path and disappear into the house. James King was ill again. She would have to see him, then. Perhaps he would have a good message for Jimsy. She finished her tea and slipped into her old blue kimono, still hanging in the closet, turned back the embroidered spread and laid herself down upon the bed. She took Jimsy's ring out of the little jewel pocket where she carried it and put it on her finger. "I will never take it off again," she said to herself. Then she fell asleep.

"Fresh as paint, T. S.," said her stepfather when she came down.

"My dear, what an adorable frock," said her mother. "You never got that in Italy!"

"But I did, Muzzie!" Honor was penitently glad of the sign of fellowship. "There's a really lovely little shop in the Via Tournabouni. Wait till my big trunk comes and you see what I found for you there! Oh, here's Mrs. Van Meter!"

She hurried to the door to greet Carter's mother. Marcia Van Meter kissed her warmly and exclaimed over her. She was thinner but it was becoming, and her gown suited her perfectly, and—they were seated at dinner now—was that an Italian ring?

"Yes," said Honor, slowly, looking first at her mother, "it is an Italian ring, a very old one. Jimsy gave it to me. It has been in the King family for generations. Isn't it lovely?"

"Lovely," said Mrs. Van Meter, coloring. She changed the subject swiftly but she did not really seem disconcerted. Indeed, her manner toward Honor during the meal and the hour that followed was affectionate to the point, almost, of seeming proprietary and maternal. Some boys and girls came in later and Mrs. Van Meter rose to go. "I'll run home, now, my dear, and leave you with your young friends."

"I'll go across the street with you, Mrs. Van Meter," said Stephen Lorimer, flinging his cigarette into the fire. He had already extracted her promise not to telegraph Carter but he meant to hear it again.

"Thanks, Mr. Lorimer, but I'm going to ask Honor to step over with me. I have a tiny parcel for Carter and a message. Will you come, Honor?"

She slipped her arm through the girl's and gave it a little squeeze as they crossed the wide street. "Hasn't the city changed and grown, my dear? Look at the number of motors in sight at this moment! One hardly dares cross the street. I declare, it makes me feel almost as if I were in the East again." She gave her a small, tissue wrapped parcel for her son and came out on to the steps again with her. "Be careful about crossing, Honor!"

"Yes," said Honor, lightly. "That would hardly do,—to come alone from Italy and then get myself run over on my own street. What's that Kipling thing Stepper quotes:

To sail unscathed from a heathen land And be robbed on a Christian coast!

Well, good-night, Mrs. Van Meter, and good-by, and I'll write you how Carter is!"

The older woman put her arms about her and held her close. "Dearest girl, Carter told me not to breathe to any one, not even to your mother, about—about what happened last summer—and—and what he asked you, and I haven't, but I must tell you how glad...." then, at the bewilderment in Honor's face in the light of the porch lamp,—"he showed me the telegram you sent him to the steamer."

"Oh,—I remember!" Her brief wire to him, promising to forgive and forget his wild words of the evening before. She had quite forgiven, and she had so nearly forgotten that she could not imagine, at first, what his mother meant. And now, because the older woman was trembling, and because Carter must have told her of how he had lost control of himself and been for a moment false to his friend, she gave back the warm embrace and kissed the pale cheek. "Yes. And I meant it, Mrs. Van Meter!"

"You blessed child!" Marcia Van Meter wiped her eyes. "You've made me very happy."

Honor ran across Figueroa Street between flashing headlights on automobiles, and her heart was soft within her. Poor old Cartie! How he must have grieved and reproached himself, and how seriously he must have taken it, to tell his mother! Fancy not forgiving people! Her stepfather had marked a passage for her in her pocket "R. L. S."... "The man who cannot forgive any mortal thing is a green hand in life," Stevenson had said. Honor believed him. She could even forgive James King, poor, proud, miserable James King, for failing Jimsy. It was because he cared so much. As she started up her own walk some one called to her from the steps of the King house.

"That you, Honor?"

"Yes, Doctor! I just came home to-day. How are you?" She ran over to shake hands with him. "Is Mr. King very sick?"

"He's dying."

"Oh, Doctor Deering!"

"Yes. No mistake about it this time. Wants to see you. Old nigger woman told him you were home. Will you come now?"

"Of course." She followed him into the house and up the long, shabbily carpeted stairs. She had never seen a dying person and she began to shiver.

As if he read her thought the doctor spoke. "Isn't going to die while you're here. Not for a week—perhaps two weeks. But he'll never be up again." His voice was gruff and his brow was furrowed. He had been with Jeanie King when Jimsy was born and when she died, and he had cherished and scorned James King for long years.

There was a chair beside the bed and Honor seated herself there in silence. Presently the sick man opened his eyes and his worn and ravaged look of his son caught at her heart.

"So," he said somberly, "you came home."

"Yes, Mr. King. I came because Jimsy was in trouble, and to-morrow I'm going to him."

His eyes widened and slow, difficult color came into his sharply boned face. "You're going ... to Mexico?"

"Yes; alone."

The color crept up and up until it reached the graying hair, crisply waved, like Jimsy's. "No King woman ever ... held harder ... than that!" he gasped. "You're a good girl, Honor Carmody. They knew ... what to ... name you, didn't they?"

She leaned nearer, holding her hand so that the rays of the night light fell on the ring. "Didn't you know I'd 'hold hard' when you let Jimsy give me this?"

He hauled himself up on an elbow and stared at it with tragic eyes. "Jeanie wore it five years.... My mother wore it thirty.... Honor Carmody, you're a good girl.... You make me ... ashamed.... Tell the boy that ... I'm sorry ... that letter. Bring him back ... in time...." He fell back, limp, gasping, and the doctor signaled to the girl to go. As she was slipping through the door the sick man spoke again, querulously. "Damn that mocking-bird ... make somebody shoot him!... There was one singing when Jimsy was born ... and when Jeanie went ... and this one now, mocking, mocking...."

She ran back to him. "Oh, Mr. King," she said, with shy fervor, "he isn't making fun of us!—Only of the bad, hard things! One sang out near Fiesta Park the day we thought Greenmount would win the championship, and one was singing the night Jimsy and I found out that we loved each other,—and this one was singing when I came home to-day!" It was a long speech for Honor and she was a little shy and breathless. "I know he doesn't mean it the way you think! He's telling us that the sad, hard, terrible things are not the real things!" Suddenly she bent and kissed his cold forehead. "Oh, Mr. King, if you listen to him with—with your heart—you'll hear it! He's mocking at trouble and disgrace,—and misunderstanding and silly pride! He's—hear him now!—he's mocking at pain and sorrow and—and death!"

Then she ran out of the room and down the long stairs and across the lawn to her own house, where a noisy and jubilant section of the Old Guard waited.



CHAPTER XI

It was happily clear at breakfast that Stephen Lorimer had more or less made his peace—and Honor's peace—with his wife. Like his beloved Job, whom he knew almost by heart, he had ordered his cause and filled his mouth with arguments, and Mildred Lorimer had come to see something rather splendidly romantic in her daughter's quest for her true love. Stephen, who never appeared at breakfast, was down on time, heavy-eyed and flushed, and Honor saw with a pang, in the stern morning light, that he was middle-aged. Her gay young stepfather! His spirit had put a period at nineteen, but his tired body was settling back into the slack lines of the late fifties. Her mother had changed but little, thanks to the unruffled serenity of her spirit and the skillful hands which cared for her.

"Muzzie," Honor had said, meeting her alone in the morning, "you are a marvel! Why, you haven't a single gray hair!"

"It's—well, I suppose it's because I have it taken care of," said Mrs. Lorimer, flushing faintly. "It's not a dye. It's not in the least a dye—it simply keeps the original color in the hair, that's all. I wouldn't think of using a dye. In the first place, they say it's really dangerous,—it seeps into the brain and affects your mind, and in the second place it gives your face a hard look, always,—and besides, I don't approve of it. But this thing Madame uses for me is perfectly harmless, Honor."

"It's perfectly charming, Muzzie," said her daughter, giving her a hearty hug. It was a good world this morning. The breakfast table was gay, and Kada beamed. Takasugi had made countless pop-overs—Honor's favorites—and Kada was slipping in and out with heaping plates of them. "Pop-all-overs" the littlest Lorimer called them, steaming, golden-hearted. Honor had sung for them and the Old Guard the night before and even the smallest of the boys was impressed and was treating her this morning with an added deference which flowered in many passings of the marmalade and much brotherly banter. The girl herself was radiant. Nothing could be very wrong in a world like this. Suppose Jimsy had slipped once—twice—half a dozen times, when she was far away across the water? One swallow didn't make a spring and one slip (or several) didn't make a "Wild King" out of Jimsy. She was going to find him and talk it over and straighten it out and bring him back here where he belonged, where they both belonged, where they would stay. His expulsion from Stanford really simplified matters, when you came to think of it; now there need be no tiresome talk of waiting until he graduated from college. And she had not the faintest intention of going back to Italy. Just as soon as Jimsy could find something to do (and her good Stepper would see to that) they would be married and move into the old King house, and how she would love opening it up to the sun and air and making it gay with new colors! All this in her quiet mind while she breakfasted sturdily with her noisy tribe. Good to be with them again, better still to be coming back to them, to stay with them, to live beside them, always.

Her train went at ten and the boys would be in school and her mother had an appointment with the lady whose ministrations kept her hair at its natural tint and Honor would not hear of her breaking it, so it was her stepfather only who took her to the station. She was rather glad of that and it made her put an unconscious extra fervor, remorsefully, into her farewells to the rest. Just as she was leaving her room there was a thump on her door and a simultaneous opening of it. Ted, her eldest Carmody brother, came in and closed the door behind him. He was a Senior at L. A. High, a football star of the second magnitude and a personable youth in all ways, and her heart warmed to him.

"Ted,—dear! I thought you'd gone to school!"

"I'm just going. Sis,—I"—he came close to her, his bonny young face suddenly scarlet—"I just wanted to say—I know why you're going down there, and—and I'm for you a million! He's all right, old Jimsy. Don't you let anybody tell you he isn't. I—you're a sport to pike down there all by yourself. You're all right, Sis! I'm strong for you!"

"Ted!" The distance between them melted; she felt the hug of his hard young arms and there was a lump in her throat and tears in her eyes, but she fought them back. He would be aghast at her if she cried. He wouldn't be for her a million any longer. She must not break down though she felt more like it than at any time since her arrival. She kept silent and let him pat her clumsily and heavily till she could command her voice. "I'm glad you want me to go, Teddy."

"You bet I do. You stick, Sis! And don't you let Carter spill the beans!"

"Why, Ted, he——"

"You keep an eye on that bird," said the boy, grimly. "You keep your lamps lit!"

She repeated his words to her stepfather as they drove to the station. "Why do you suppose he said that, Stepper?"

Stephen Lorimer shrugged. "I don't think he meant anything specific, T. S., but you know the kids have never cared for Carter."

"I know; it's that he isn't their type. They haven't understood him."

"Or—it's that they have."

"Stepper! You, too?" Honor was driving and she did not turn her head to look at him, but he knew the expression of her face from the tone of her voice. "Do you mean that, seriously?"

"I think I do, T. S. Look here,—we might as well talk things over straight from the shoulder this morning. Shall we?"

"Please do, Stepper." She turned into a quieter street and drove more slowly, so that she was able to face him for an instant, her face troubled.

"Want me to drive?"

"No,—I like the feel of the wheel again, after so long. You talk, Stepper."

"Well, T. S., I've no tangible charge to make against Carter, save that his influence has been consistently bad for Jimsy since the first day he limped into our ken. Consistently and—persistently bad, T. S. You know—since we're not dealing in persiflage this morning—that Carter is quite madly, crazily, desperately in love with you?"

"I—yes, I suppose that's what you'd call it, Stepper. He—rather lost his head last summer,—the night before you sailed."

"But the night before we sailed," said her stepfather, drawing from his neatly card-indexed memory, "it was with me that you held a little last session."

"Yes,—but on my way upstairs. The lift had stopped, you know. I was frightfully angry at him and said something cruel, but the next morning he looked so white and wretched and wrote me such a pathetic letter, asking me to forgive and forget and all that sort of thing, and I sent him a wire to the steamer, saying I would."

"Ah! That was his telegram. We wondered."

"And he's been very nice since, in the few letters I've had from him."

"I daresay. But Ted's right, Top Step. In the parlance of the saints you do 'want to keep your lamps lit.' Carter, denied health and strength and physical glory, has had everything else he's ever wanted except you,—and he hasn't given you up yet."

Honor nodded, her face flushed, her eyes straight ahead.

"And now—more plain talk, T. S. This is a fine, sporting, rather spectacular thing you're doing, going down to Mexico after Jimsy, and I'm absolutely with you, but—if the worst should be true—if the boy really has gone to pieces—you won't marry him?"

"No," said the girl steadily, after an instant's pause. "If Jimsy should be—like his father—I wouldn't marry him, Stepper. There shouldn't be—any more 'Wild Kings.' But I'd never marry any one else, and—oh, but it would be a long time to live, Stepper, dear!"

"I'm betting you'll find him in good shape,—and keep him so, Top Step. At any rate, however it comes out, you'll always be glad you went."

"I know I will."

"Yes; you're that sort of woman, T. S.,—the 'whither thou goest' kind. I believe women may roughly be divided into two classes; those who passively let themselves be loved; those who actively love. The former have the easier time of it, my dear." His tired eyes visioned his wife, now closeted with Madame. He sighed once and then he smiled. "And they get just as much in return, let me tell you,—more, I really believe. But I want you to promise me one thing."

"What?"

"That you'll never give up your singing. Keep it always, T. S. There'll be times when you need it—to run away to—to hide in."

She nodded, soberly.

His eyes began to kindle. "Every woman ought to have something! Men have. It should be with women as with men—love a thing apart in their lives, not their whole existence! Then they wouldn't agonize and wear on each other so! I believe there's a chapter in that, for my book, Top Step."

"I'm sure there is," said Honor, warmly. They had reached the station now and a red cap came bounding for her bags. "And I won't even try to thank you, Stepper, dear, for all——"

"Don't be a goose, T. S.,—look! There are your Mexicans!"

Honor followed his eyes. "Aren't they delicious?" They hurried toward them. "The girl's adorable!"

"They all are." Stephen Lorimer performed the introductions with proper grace and seriousness and they all stood about in strained silence until the Senora was nervously sure they ought to be getting on board. "Might as well, T. S.," her stepfather said. She was looking rather white, he thought, and they might as well have the parting over. Honor was very steady about it. "Good-by, Stepper. I'll write you at once, and you'll keep us posted about Mr. King?" She stood on the observation platform, waving to him, gallantly smiling, and he managed his own whimsical grin until her train curved out of sight. One in a thousand, his Top Step. How she had added to the livableness of life for him since the day she had gravely informed her mother that she believed she liked him better than her own father, that busy gentleman who had stayed so largely Down Town at The Office! Stephen Lorimer was too intensely and healthily interested in the world he was living in to indulge in pallid curiosity about the one beyond, but now his mind entertained a brief wonder ... did he know, that long dead father of Honor Carmody, about this glorious girl of his? Did he see her now, setting forth on this quest; this pilgrimage to her True Love, as frankly and freely as she would have gone to nurse him in sickness? He grinned and gave himself a shake as he went back to the machine,—he had lost too much sleep lately. He would turn in for a nap before luncheon; Mildred would not be out of her Madame's deft hands until noon.

The family of Menendez y Garci-a beamed upon Honor with shy cordiality. Senor Menendez was a dapper little gentleman, got up with exquisite care from the perfect flower on his lapel to his small cloth-topped patent leather shoes, but his wife was older and larger and had a tiny, stern mustache which made her seem the more male and dominant figure of the two. Mariquita, the girl, was all father, and she had been a year in a Los Angeles convent. The mother wore rich but dowdy black and an impossible headgear, a rather hawklike affair which appeared to have alighted by mistake on the piles of dusky hair where it was shakily balancing itself, but Mariquita's narrow blue serge was entirely modish, and her tan pumps, and sheer amber silk hose, and her impudent hat. The Senor spent a large portion of his time in the smoker and the Senora bent over a worn prayer book or murmured under her breath as her fingers slipped over the beads in her lap, but the girl chattered unceasingly. Her English was fluent but she had kept an intriguing accent.

"Ees he not beautiful, Mees Carmody, my Papa?" She pushed the accent forward to the first syllable. "And my poor Madrecita of a homely to chill the blood? But a saint, my mawther. Me, I am not so good. Also gracias a Dios, I am not so——" she leaned forward to regard herself in the narrow strip of mirror between the windows and—a wary eye on the Senora—applied a lip stick to her ripe little mouth. She wanted at once to know about Honor's sweethearts. "A fe mia—in all your life but one novio? Me, I have now seex. So many have I since I am twelve years I can no longer count for you!" She shrugged her perilously plump little shoulders. "One! Jus' like I mus' have a new hat, I mus' have a new novio!"

They were all a little formal with her until after they had left El Paso and crossed the Mexican border at Juarez, when their manner became at once easy, hospitable, proprietary. They pointed out the features of the landscape and the stations where they paused, they plied her unceasingly with the things they purchased every time the train hesitated long enough for vendadors to hold up their wares at the windows,—fresas (the famous strawberries in little leaf baskets), higos (fat figs), helado (a thin and over-sweet ice cream), and the delectable Cajeta de Celaya, the candy made of milk and fruit paste and magic. They were behind time and the train seemed to loiter in serenest unconcern. Senor Menendez came back from the smoker with a graver face every day. The men who came on board from the various towns brought tales of unrest and feverish excitement, of violence, even, in some localities.

If his friends could not be sure of meeting Honor at Cordoba and driving her to the Kings' hacienda the Senor himself would escort her, after seeing his wife and daughter home. Honor assured him that she was not afraid, that she would be quite safe, and she was thoroughly convinced of it herself; nothing would be allowed to happen to her on her way to Jimsy.

"Your father is so good," she said gratefully to Mariquita.

"Yes," she smiled. "My Papa ees of a deeferent good; he ees glad-good, an' my Madrecita ees sad-good. Me—I am bad-good! You know, I mus' go to church wiz my mawther, but my Papa, he weel not go. He nevair say 'No' to my mawther; he ees too kind. Jus' always on the church day he is seek. So seek ees my poor Papa on the church day!" She flung back her head and laughed and showed her short little white teeth.

But Senor Menendez had an answer to his telegram on the morning of the day on which they were to part; his friend, the eminent Profesor, Hidalgo Morales, accompanied by his daughter, Senorita Refugio, would without fail be waiting for Miss Carmody when her train reached Cordoba and would see her safely into the hands of her friends. Honor said good-by reluctantly to the family of Menendez y Garcia; the beautiful little father kissed her hand and the grave mother gave her a blessing and Mariquita embraced her passionately and kissed her on both cheeks and produced several entirely genuine tears. She saw them greeted by a flock of relatives and friends on the platform but they waved devotedly to her as long as she could see them. Then she had a quiet and solitary day and in the silence the old anxieties thrust out their heads again, but she drove them sturdily back, forcing herself to pay attention to the picture slipping by the car window,—the lovely languid tierra caliente which was coming to meet her. The old Profesor and his daughter were waiting for her; shy, kindly, earnest, less traveled than the Menendez', with a covered carriage which looked as if it might be a relic of the days of Maximilian. Conversation drowsed on the long drive to the Kings' coffee plantation; the Senorita spoke no English and Honor's High School Spanish got itself annoyingly mixed with Italian, and the old gentleman, after minute inquiries as to her journey and the state of health of his cherished friend, Senor Felipe Hilario Menendez y Garcia, sank into placid thought. It was a ridiculous day for winter, even to a Southern Californian, and the tiny villages through which they passed looked like gay and shabby stage settings.

The Profesor roused at last. "We arrive, Senorita," he announced, with a wave of his hand. They turned in at a tall gateway of lacy ironwork and Honor's heart leaped—"El Pozo." Richard King.

"The name is given because of the old well," the Mexican explained. "It is very ancient, very deep—without bottom, the peons believe." They drew up before a charming house of creamy pink plaster and red tiles, rioted over by flowering vines. "I wait but to make sure that Senor or Senora King is at home." A soft-eyed Mexican woman came to the door and smiled at them, and there was a rapid exchange of liquid sentence. "They are both at home, Senorita. We bid you farewell."

The servant, wide-eyed and curious, had come at his command to take Honor's bags.

"Oh—but—surely you'll wait? Won't you come in and rest? It was such a long, warm drive, and you must be tired."

He bowed, hat in hand, shaking his handsome silver head. "We leave you to the embraces of your friends, Senorita. One day we will do ourselves the honor to call upon you, and Senor and Senora King, whom it is our privilege to know very slightly. For the present, we are content to have served you."

"Oh," said Honor in her hearty and honest voice, holding out a frank hand, "this is the kindest country! Every one has been so good to me! I wish I could thank you enough!"

The old gentleman stood very straight and a dark color surged up in his swarthy face. "Then, dear young lady, you will perhaps have the graciousness to say a pleasant word for us in that country of yours which does not love us too well! You will perhaps say we are not all barbarians." He gave an order to his coachman and the quaint old carriage turned slowly and precisely and started on its long return trip, the Profesor, still bareheaded, bowing, his daughter beaming and kissing her hand. Honor held herself rigidly to the task of seeing them off. Then—Jimsy! Where was he? She had had a childish feeling that he would be instantly visible when she got there; she had come from Italy to Mexico,—from Florence to a coffee plantation beyond Cordoba in the tierra caliente to find him,—and journeys ended in lovers' meeting, every wise man's son—and daughter—knew. The nods and becks and wreathed smiles of the serving woman brought her back to earth.

"Senora King?" She asked, dutifully, for her hostess—her unconscious hostess—first.

"Si Senorita! Pronto!" The servant beckoned her into a dim, cool sala and disappeared. "Well, I know what that means," Honor told herself. "'Right away.' Oh, I hope it's right away!"

But it was not. The Kings, like all sensible people, were at their siesta; twenty racking moments went by before they came in. Richard King was older than Jimsy's father but he had the same look of race and pride, and his wife was a plain, rather tired-looking Englishwoman with very white teeth and broodingly tender blue eyes which belied the briskness of her manner.

"I am Honor Carmody."

"You are——" Mrs. King came forward, frowning a little.

"I—I am engaged to your nephew—to Jimsy King. I think you must have heard of me."

"My dear, of course we have! How very nice to see you! But—how—and where did you——"

The girl interrupted breathlessly. "Oh, please,—I'll tell you everything, in a minute. But I must know about him! I came from Italy because—because of his trouble at college. Is he—is he——" she kept telling herself that she was Honor Carmody, the tomboy-girl who never cried or made scenes—Jimsy's Skipper—her dear Stepper's Top Step; she was not a silly creature in a novel; she would not scream and beg them to tell her—tell her—even if they stood there staring at her for hours longer. And then she heard Richard King saying in a voice very like his brother's, a little like Jimsy's:

"Why, the boy's all right! Ab-so-lutely all right! Isn't he, Madeline? Steady as a clock. That college nonsense——"

And then Honor found herself leaning back in a marvelously comfortable chair by an open window and Mr. King was fanning her slowly and strongly and Mrs. King was making her drink something cool and pungent, and telling her it was the long, hot drive out from Cordoba in the heat of the day and that she mustn't try to talk for a little while. Honor obeyed them docilely for what she was sure was half an hour and which was in fact five minutes and then she sat up straight and decisively. "I'm perfectly all right now, thank you. Will you tell me where I can find Jimsy?"

"I expect he's taking his nap down at the old well. I'll send for him. You must be quiet, my dear."

She got to her feet and let them see how steady she was. "Please let me go to him!"

"But Josita will fetch him in less time, my dear, and we'll have Carter called, too, and——" Mrs. King stopped abruptly at the look in the girl's eyes. "Josita will show you the way," she said in quite another tone. "You must carry my sunshade and not walk too quickly."

Honor tried not to walk too quickly but she kept catching up with the Mexican serving woman and passing her on the path, and falling back again with a smile of apology, and the woman smiled in return, showing white, even teeth. It was not as long a walk as it seemed, but their pace made it consume ten interminable minutes. At length the twisting walk twisted once more and gave on a cleared space, meltingly green, breathlessly still, an ancient stone well in its center.

Josita gestured with a brown hand. "Alla esta Senorito Don Diego! Adios, Senorita!"

"Gracias!" Honor managed.

"Te nada!" She smiled and turned back along the way they had come. "It is nothing!" she had said. Nothing to have brought her on the last stage of her long quest! Jimsy was asleep in the deep grass in the shade. She went nearer to him, stepping softly, hardly breathing. He was stretched at ease, his sleeves rolled high on his tanned arms, his tanned throat bare, his crisp hair rolling back from his brow in the old stubborn wave, his thick lashes on his cheek. His skin was as clean and clear as a little boy's; he looked a little boy, sleeping there. She leaned over him and he stirred and sighed happily, as if dimly aware of her nearness. She tried to speak to him, to say—"Jimsy!" but she found she could not manage it, even in a whisper. So she sat down beside him and gathered him into her arms.