celeb. here. Honor has to
stay and play-pretty with her."

"Well ... if we don't make it too late----"

Jimsy turned and sped away with Honor's offering for James King.

Honor looked at Carter. His eyes were very bright; he looked more
excited, now, some way, than he had at the game. Poor old Carter. He
wanted, she supposed, to do something for Jimsy ... to give him a
wonderful party ... to spend money on him ... to excel and to shine in
_his_ way. But--the ship-hotel--and his father over there all day in the
darkened room--For the first time in her honest life she stooped to
guile. "I'll be down in a minute, Carter," she said and ran upstairs,
through the hall, down the backstairs, cut through the kitchen and
across the wet and springy lawn to the King place.

She waited in the shadow of the house until he came out.

"Jimsy!"

"Skipper!"

"I slipped out--sh ... Jimsy, I--_please_ don't go with Carter to-night!
I don't mean to interfere or--or nag, Jimsy,--you know that, don't you?"
She slipped a little on the wet grass in her thin slippers, and laid
hold of his arm to steady herself. "But--it worries me. You're the
finest, the most wonderful person in the world, and I trust you more
than I trust myself, but--I know how boys are about--things--and--" she
turned her face to the dark house where so many "Wild Kings" had lived
and moved and had their unhappy being--"I couldn't _bear_ it if----"

It began to rain again, softly, and they moved unconsciously toward the
shelter of the porch.

"You were so splendid to-day! I haven't had a chance to tell you ...
shaking hands with him, being so----"

"You made me," said Jimsy King. Then, at her murmured protest. "You did.
You made me, just as you've made me do every decent thing I've ever
done. I'm just beginning to see it. I guess I'm the blindest bat that
ever lived. Of course I won't go with Cart' to-night. I won't do
anything you don't----"

Honor had mounted two steps, to be under the roof of the porch, and now,
turning sharply in her gladness, the wet slipper slipped again, and she
would have fallen if he had not caught her.

"_Skipper!_"

"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!