"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, sturdily, "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 amusement 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 embarrassment. "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
attitude 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, God 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 sturdy 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 shore. 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 passed 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.
"Oh," said Honor, gasping, pushing him away with her hands against his
chest--"you wouldn't have had _time_!"
"I could have dropped Spanish or Math'," he grinned. "Come on,--let's go
further up the coast. Some of those kids will be tagging after us, or
Carter."
"Not Carter. Stepper's reading to him. He won't let him come."
"One peach of a scout, Stephen Lorimer is," said the boy, warmly. "Best
scout in the world."
"He's the best friend we've got in the world, Jimsy," she said gravely.
"I know it. Your mother's pretty much peeved about it, Skipper."
"Yes, she is, just now. Poor Muzzie! I'm afraid I've never pleased her
very much. But she gets over things. She'll get over it when--when she
finds that we _don't_ get over it!" She held out her hand to him and he
took it in a hard grip, and they swung along at a fine stride, up the
twisting shore road. They came at last to the great gate which led into
the Malibou Ranch and they halted there and went down into a little
pocket of rocks and sand and sun and sat down with their faces to the
shining sea.
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.