"It's--it's all right!" said Honor in a breathless whisper. "I'm all right, Jimsy. Let me----"

But Jimsy King would not let her go. He held her fast with all his football strength and all his eighteen years of living and loving, and he said over and over in the new, strange voice she had never heard before, "_Skipper! Skipper! Skipper!_"

"Jimsy ... what--what is happening to us? Jimsy, dear, we never before--Jimsy, are we--are we--_Is this being--in love_?"

And the mocking-bird of the morning, mounted on the wet Bougainvillaea on the summerhouse in Honor's garden, explained to them in a mad, exultant, thrilling burst of song.

CHAPTER VI

"At least," Mildred Lorimer wept, "at _least_, Stephen, make them keep it a secret! Make them promise not to tell a living soul--and not to act in such a way as to let people suspect! I think"--she lifted tragic, reproachful eyes to him--"you ought to do what you can, now, considering that it's all your fault."

"Some day," said her husband, st.u.r.dily, "it will be all my cleverness ... all my glory. I did honestly believe it was a cradle chumship which wouldn't last, Mildred. I thought it would break of its own length. But I'm glad it hasn't."

"Stephen, how _can_ you? One of the 'Wild Kings'--I cannot bear it. I simply cannot bear it." She clutched at her hope. "She must go abroad even sooner than we planned--and _stay_ abroad. Stephen, you will make them keep it a secret from every one?"

"They've already told Carter. Told him just after they'd told me."

"Oh, poor, poor Carter!" There was a note of fresh woe in her voice.

He turned sharply to look at her. "So, that's where the pointed patent leather pinches, Mildred?"

"What do you mean?"

"You've been hoping it would be Carter?"

"Dearest, I've looked upon them all as children.... It was the merest ... idea ... thought. Mrs. Van Meter is devoted to Honor, Carter is an unusual boy, and they're exceptional people. And he--of course, I mean in his boyish way--_adores_ Honor. This will be a cruel blow for him."

She grieved. "Poor, frail boy...."

Stephen Lorimer smoked in silence for a moment. "I fancy Carter will not give up hope. There's nothing frail about his disposition. His will doesn't limp."

"Well, I certainly hope he doesn't consider it final. I don't. I consider it a silly boy-and-girl piece of sentimental nonsense, and I shall do everything in my power to break it up. I consider that my child's happiness is at stake."

"Yes," said her husband, "so do I." He got up and went round to his wife's chair and put penitent arms about her and comforted her. After all, he could afford to be magnanimous. He was going to win his point in the end, and meanwhile it would be an excellent thing for the youngsters to have Mildred doing everything in her pretty power to break it up. She might just as well, he believed, try to put out the hearth fire with the bellows.

With her daughter she became motherly and admonitory in her official third person. "Mother wants only your happiness; you know that, dear."

"Well, then, there's nothing to worry about," said Honor, comfortably, "for you want me to be happy and I can't be happy unless it's with Jimsy, so you'll have to want me to have Jimsy, Muzzie!"

"Mother wants real happiness for you, Honor, genuine, lasting happiness.

That's why she wants you to be sure. And you cannot possibly be sure at your age."

"Yes, I can, Muzzie," said Honor, patiently. "Surer than sure.

Why,--haven't I always had Jimsy,--ever since I can remember? _Before_ I can remember? He's part of everything that's ever happened to me. I can't imagine what things would be like without him. _I won't imagine it!_" Her eyes darkened and her mouth grew taut.

"But you'll promise Mother to keep it a secret? You'll promise me faithfully?"

"Of course, Muzzie, if you want me to, but I can't see what difference it makes. I'll never be any surer than I am now,--and I can't ever know Jimsy any better than I do now. Why"--she laughed--"it isn't as if I had fallen in love at eighteen, with a new person, some one I'd just met, or some one I'd known only a little while, like Carter! If I felt like this about Carter I'd think it was reasonable to 'wait' and be 'sure.'" She was aware of a new expression on her mother's lovely face and interpreted it in her own fashion. "I'm sorry if you don't like our telling Carter, Muzzie. We did it before you asked us not to, you know.

He's always with us and I'm sure he'd have found out, anyway." She smiled. "Carter's funny about it. He acts--amused--as if he were years and years older, and we were babies playing in a sand box or making mud pies." It was clear that his amus.e.m.e.nt amused her, just as her mother's admonition amused her: nothing annoyed or disturbed her,--her serenity was too deep for that. Her fine placidity was lighted now with an inner flame, but she was very quiet about her happiness; she was not very articulate in her joy.

"Mother cannot let you go about unchaperoned with Jimsy, Honor. People would very soon suspect----"

"I don't think they would, Muzzie," said Honor, calmly. "None of the other mothers are so particular, you know. Most of the girls go on walks and rides alone. But we won't, if you'd rather not. Stepper will go with us, or Billy, or Ted."

Mrs. Lorimer sighed. She could envisage just how much efficient, deterrent chaperonage her husband would supply.

She watched them set off for the Malibou Ranch the next Sunday morning rather complacently, however. She had seen to it that Carter was of the party. To be sure, he was in the tonneau with Stephen Lorimer and the young Carmodys and Lorimers and the heroic-sized lunch box and the thermos case, while Jimsy and Honor sat in front, but at least he was there. There would be no ignoring Carter, as they might well ignore her husband and sons.

Carter, talking easily and intelligently to his host about the growing problem of Mexico, quietly watched the two in front. They were not talking very much. Jimsy was driving and he kept his eyes on the road for the most part, and Honor sat very straight, her hands in her lap.

Only once Carter saw, from the line of his arm, that Jimsy had put his left hand over hers, and when it happened he stopped short in the middle of his neat sentence and an instant later he said, coloring faintly,--"I beg your pardon, Mr. Lorimer,--you were saying?"

Stephen Lorimer felt an intense pity for him but he did not see any present or future help for his misery. Therefore, when they had finished their gypsy luncheon and the younger boys were settling it by a wild rough-house before their swim and Jimsy rose and said, "Want to walk up the coast, Skipper?" and Honor said, "Yes,--just as soon as I've put these things away," he went deliberately and seated himself beside Carter and began to read aloud to him from the Sunday paper.

He looked up from the sheet to watch the boy's face as the others set off. Carter pulled himself to his feet. He ran his tongue over his lips in rare embarra.s.sment. "I--don't you feel like a stroll, too, Mr.

Lorimer? After that enormous lunch, I----"

Honor's stepfather grinned. "Well, I don't feel like a stroll in that direction, Carter. Let 'em alone,--shan't we?" He included him in the att.i.tude of affectionate indulgence. "I've been there myself, and you will be there--if you haven't been already." He patted the sand beside him. "Sit down, old man. This editorial sounds promising."

But Carter would not be denied. "Mr. Lorimer, you don't consider it--_serious_, do you?"

"About the most serious matter in the world, I should say, Carter."

The boy refused the generalization. "I mean, between Honor and Jimsy?"

He was visibly expecting a negative answer. "I know that Mrs. Lorimer doesn't."

"Well, I disagree with her. I should say, with average youngsters of their age that it was as transient as--as the measles. But they aren't average, Carter."

"I know that. At least, Honor isn't."

"Nor Jimsy. I sometimes think, Carter, that fellows of our type, yours and mine," he was not looking at him now, he was running his long fingers lazily through the hot and shining sand, "are apt to be a little contemptuous in our minds of his sort. Being rather long on brain, we fancy, we allow ourselves a scorn of the more or less unadorned brawn.

And yet,--they're the salt of the earth, Carter; they're the cities set on hills. They do the world's red-blooded vital jobs while we--think.

And Honor's not clever either; you know that, Carter. All the sense and balance and character in the world, Top Step, G.o.d love her, but not a flash of brilliancy. They're capitally suited. Sane, sound, sweet; gloriously fit and healthy young animals--" this was calculated cruelty; Carter might as well face things; there would be a girl, waiting now somewhere, no doubt, who wouldn't mind his limp, but Honor must have a mate of her own vigorous breed,--Honor who had always and would always "run with the boys,"--"who will produce their own sort again."

The boy's mouth was twisted. "And--and how about his blood--his heredity? Isn't he one of the 'Wild Kings'?"

"You know," Stephen lighted a cigarette, "I don't believe he is! He's got their looks and their charm, but I'm convinced he's two-thirds Scotch mother,--that st.u.r.dy soul who would have saved his father if death hadn't tricked her. And I'm rather a radical about heredity, anyway, Carter. It's gruesomely overrated, I think. What is it?--Clammy hands reaching out from the grave to clutch at warm young flesh--and pollute it? Not while there are living hands to beat them off!" He began to get vehement and warm. There was to be a chapter on heredity in that book of his, one day. "It's a bogy. It goes down before environment as the dark before the dawn. Why, environment's a vital, flesh and blood thing, fighting with and for us every instant! I could take the offspring of Philip the Second and Great Catherine and make a--a Frances Willard or a Jane Addams of her,--_if_ people didn't sit about like crows, cawing about her parents and her blood and her heritage. Even dry, statistical scientists are beginning----"

And while like the Ancient Mariner he held Carter Van Meter on the sunny sand Honor and Jimsy walked sedately up the sh.o.r.e. They were a little ill at ease, both of them. It was the first time since--as Honor put it to herself--"it had happened" that they had been quite alone with each other in the hard, bright daylight. There had been delectable moments on the stairs, on the porch, stolen seconds in the summerhouse, but here they were on a blazing Sunday afternoon under a turquoise sky, with a salt and hearty wind stinging their faces, all by themselves. They would not be quite out of sight of the rest, though, until they rounded the next turn in the curving road. Jimsy looked back over his shoulder, obviously taking note of the fact. He knew that Honor knew it, too, and the sight of her hot cheeks, her resolute avoidance of his eyes put him suddenly at ease.

"I guess," he said, casually, "this is kind of like Italy. Fair enough, isn't it?"

"Heavenly," said Honor, a little breathlessly. "Italy! Just think, Jimsy,--next year at this time I'll _be_ in Italy!"

"Gee," he said, solemn and aghast, "_gee_!" They had pa.s.sed the turn and instantly he had her in a tense, vise-like hug. "No, you won't. No, you won't. _I won't let you._ I won't let you go 'way off there, alone, without me. I won't let you, Skipper, do you hear?" Suddenly he stopped talking and began to kiss her. Presently he laughed. "I've always known I was a poor nut, Skipper, but to think it took me eighteen years to discover what it would be like to kiss you!" He took up his task again.