ike such a boob, not daring to eat this
or that, or smoke or--or anything." Heresy this, from the three years'
captain of L. A. High who had never considered any sacrifice worth a
murmur which kept him fit for the real business of life. "Somehow, he's
so keen, he makes me wish I had more in my head and--and less in my
heels! You know what I mean, Skipper. He does make me look like a simp,
doesn't he?"

"No," said Honor, definitely. "Why, Jimsy, you're a million times
bigger person than Carter. Everybody knows that. _Knowing_ things isn't
everything--knowing what to wear and how to order meals at the
Alexandria and reading all the new books and having been to Europe.
Those things just fill in for him; they make up--a little--for the
things you've had."

"Do you mean that, Skipper? Is that straight?"

"Of course, Jimsy--cross my heart!" It was curious, the way she was
having to comfort Jimsy for not being Carter, and Carter for not being
Jimsy.

CHAPTER V

It rained the day of the game. It had been sulking and threatening for
twenty-four hours, and Honor wakened to the sound of a sluicing
downpour. She ran to her window, which looked out on the garden. The
long leaves of the banana tree were flapping wetly and the Bougainvillaea
on the summerhouse looked soaked and sodden. Somewhere a mocking bird
was singing deliriously, making his tuneful fun of the weather. Honor
went down to breakfast with a sober face.

They had a house-guest, a friend of her stepfather's, an Englishwoman, a
novelist. She was a brisk, ruddy-skinned creature, with crisp sentences
and sturdy legs in thick stockings, and she was taking a keen interest
in American sport. "Oh, I say," she greeted Honor, "isn't this bad for
your match?"

"Yes, Miss Bruce-Drummond, it is. We were hoping for a dry field.
They're more used to playing in the mud than we are. But it'll be all
right."

"I'm fearfully keen about it.--No, thank you--my mother was Scotch, you
see, and I don't take sugar to my porridge. Salt, please!" She turned to
Stephen Lorimer. "I've been meaning to ask you what you think of Arnold
Bennett over here?"

Honor's stepfather flung himself zestfully into the discussion. He liked
clever women and he knew a lot of them, but he had been at some pains
not to marry one. Mildred Lorimer, beside the shining copper coffee
percolator, looked a lovely Vesta of the hearth and home.

Honor wished she might take a pleat in the fore-noon. She