gly.

He stood looking down at her, his face working. "Mother, I want Honor
Carmody."

"Carter!"

"I want Honor Carmody." He rode over her murmured protests. "I know I'm
only nineteen. I know I'm too young--she's too young. I'd expect to
wait, of course. But--_I want her_."

Marcia Van Meter's heart cried out to her to say again as she had said
all through his little-boy days, "Dearest, Mother'll get her for you!
Mother'll get her for you to-morrow!" But instead her gaze went down to
the page she had been reading ... the last scene in "Ghosts," where
Oswald Alving says:

"_Mother, give me the sun! The sun!! The Sun!!!_" She shivered and shut
the book with emphasis and threw it on a near-by chair. She spoke
brightly, reassuringly. "I'm sure she's devoted to you, dear. You are
the best of friends, and that's enough for the present, isn't it?"

"No."

"Dearest, you've said yourself that you realize you're too young for
anything serious, yet. Why can't you wait contentedly, until----"

"There's some one else. There's Jimsy."

"Carter, I'm sure they're like brother and sister. They have been
playmates all their lives. That sort of thing rarely merges into
romance."

"Doesn't it?" His voice was seeking, hungry. "Honestly?"

"_Very_ rarely, dear, believe me!" She sped to comfort him. "Besides,
her people, her mother, would never want anything of that sort ... the
taint in his blood ... the reputation of his family.... Mrs. Lorimer
says they've always been called the 'Wild Kings.' Of course Jimsy seems
quite all right, so far, and I hope and pray he always may be--he's a
dear boy and I'm very fond of him--but, as he grows older and is beset
by more temptations----"

The boy relaxed a little from his pale rigidity and sat down opposite
his mother. He held out his hands to the fire and she saw that they were
trembling. "Yes," he said, "I've thought of that. I've thought of that.
Perhaps, when he gets to college--up at Stanford, away from Honor--I've
thought of that!" He bent his head, staring into the fire.

His mother did not see the expression on his face. "Besides, dear,
Honor's going abroad next year, for her voice. She'll meet new people,
form new ties----"

"That doesn't cheer me up very much, Mother."

"I mean," she hastened, "it will break up the life-long intimacy with
Jimsy. And perhaps you and I can go over for the summer, and take her to
Switzerland with us. Wouldn't that be jolly? You know, dear,"