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  CHAPTER IV

  When they told Marcia Van Meter (Mrs. Horace Flack) that her little boywould always be lame, that not one of the great surgeon-wizards oneither side of the Atlantic--not all the king's horses and all theking's men could ever weight or wrench or force the small, thin left legdown to the length of the right, she vowed to herself that she wouldmake it up to him. She was a pretty thing, transparently frail andethereal-looking, who had always projected herself passionately into thelives of those about her--her father's and mother's--the young husband'swho had died soon after her son was born--and now her boy's. While hewas less than ten years old it seemed to her that she compassed it; ifhe could not race and run with his contemporaries he rode the smartestof ponies and drove clever little traps; if he might not join in therough sports out of doors he had a houseful of brilliant mechanicaltoys; he lived like a little Prince--like a little American Prince witha magic bottomless purse at his command. But when he left his littleboyhood behind she discovered her futility; she discovered the small,pitiful purchasing power of money, after all. She could not buy himbodily strength and beauty; she could not buy him fellowship in theworld of boys; he was forever looking out at it, wistfully,disdainfully, bitterly, through his plate glass window.

  She spent herself untiringly for him,--playmates, gifts, tutors,journeys. Her happiest moments were those in which he said, "Mother, I'dlike one of those wireless jiggers,"--or a new saddle-horse, or a newroadster--and she was able to answer, "Dearest, I'll get it for you!Mother'll get it for you to-morrow!"

  But the days when she could spell omnipotence for him were fading away.He wanted now, increasingly, things beyond her gift. He was a cleverboy, proud, poised. He learned early to wear a mask of indifferenceabout his lameness, to affect a coolness for sports which came,eventually, to be genuine. He studied easily and well; he could talkwith a brilliancy beyond his years. He learned--astonishingly, at hisage--to get his deepest satisfactions from creature comforts--hisquietly elegant clothes, his food, his surroundings. Mrs. Van Meter hadhigh hopes of the move to Los Angeles; he was to be benefited, body andbrain. She was a little anxious at finding they had moved into aneighborhood of boys and girls; Carter was happier with older people,but he seemed to like these lively, robust creatures surprisingly.Weeks, months, a year, went by. Carter, less than a year older thanJimsy King but two years ahead of him in his studies, was doing somespecial work at the University of Southern California, but his time waspractically his own--to spend with Honor and Jimsy. Honor and Jimsyshowed, each of them, the imprint of their association with him. Theyhad come to care more for the things he held high ... books ... theaters... dinners at the Crafts Alexandria ... Grand Opera records on thevictrola ... more careful dress.

  "Carter has really done a great deal for those children," MildredLorimer told her husband, complacently.

  "Yes," Stephen admitted. "It's true. He has. And"--he sighed--"theyhaven't done a thing for him."

  "Stephen dear,--what could they do--crude children that they are, besidea boy with his advantages? What could they do for him?--Make him playfootball? What did you expect them to do?"

  "I don't know," he said, moodily, "but at any rate they haven't doneit."

  Jimsy King was going--by the grace of his own frantic eleventh hourefforts and his teachers' clemency and Honor Carmody--to graduate.Barring calamities, he would possess a diploma in February. Honor wastremendously earnest about it; Carter, to whom learning came as easilyas the air he breathed, faintly amused. She thought, sometimes, forbrief, traitorous moments, that Carter wasn't always good for Jimsy.

  "You see," she explained to her stepfather, "Carter doesn't realize howhard Jimsy has to grind for all he gets. Even now, Stepper, after beinghere a year, he actually doesn't realize the importance of Jimsy'sgetting signed up to play. It's a strange thing, with all hiscleverness, but he doesn't, and he's always taking Jimsy out on partiesand rides and things, and he gets behind in everything. I think I'lljust have to speak to him about it."

  He nodded. "That's a good idea, Top Step. Do that."

  She grew still more sober. "Another thing, Stepper ... about--about Mr.King's--trouble. Of course, you and I have never believed that Jimsy_had_ to inherit it, have we?"

  "No. Not if people let him alone. His life, his training, hisenvironment, are very different--more wholesome, vital. The energy whichhis grandfather and his uncles and his father had to find a vent for incards and drink Jimsy's sweated out in athletics."

  "Yes. But--just the same--isn't it better for Jimsy to keep awayfrom--from those things?"

  "Naturally. Better for anybody."

  She sighed. "Carter doesn't think so. He says the world is full ofit--Jimsy must learn to be near it and let it alone."

  "That's true, in a sense, T. S...."

  "I know. But--sometimes I think Carter deliberately takes Jimsy placesto--test him. Of course he thinks he's doing right, but it worries me."

  Stephen Lorimer smoked in silence. He had his own ideas. "Better havethat talk with him," he said.

  Honor found the talk oddly disturbing. Carter was very sweet about it ashe always was with her, but he held stubbornly to his own opinion.

  "Look here, Honor, you can't follow Jimsy through the world like anursemaid, you know."

  "Carter! I don't mean----"

  "He's got to meet and face these things, to fight what somebody calls'the battle of his blood.' You mustn't wrap him up in cotton wool. Ifhe's going, to be bowled over he might as well find it out. He must takehis chances--just as any other fellow--just as I must."

  "Oh, but, Carter, you know you're strong, and----"

  Suddenly his pale face was stung with hot color. "Honor," he leanedforward, "you think I'm strong, in _any_ way? You don't consider mean--utter weakling?"

  She looked with comprehending tenderness at his crimson face. "Why,Carter, dear! You know I've never thought you that! There are more waysof being--being strong than--than just with muscles and bones!"

  He reached out and took one of her firm, tanned hands in his, and shehad never seen him so winningly wistful, so wistfully winning. "Ithought," he said, very low, "that was the only kind of strength thatcounted with you. Then--I do count with you, Honor? I do?"

  She was a little startled, a little frightened, wholly uncomfortable.There was something in Carter's voice she didn't understand ... somethingshe didn't want to understand. She pulled her hand away and managed herboyish grin. "Of course you do,--goose! And you'll count more if you'llhelp me to look after Jimsy and have him graduate on time!" She got upquickly as her stepfather came into the room, and Carter went home,crossing the street with the rather pathetic arrogance of his haltinggait, his head held high, tilted a little back, which gave him theexpression of looking down on a world of swift striders.

  He found his mother reading before a low fire. "Well, dearest?" Shesmiled up at him, yearningly.

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

  "Carter!"

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

  Marcia Van Meter's heart cried out to her to say again as she had saidall 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 tothe page she had been reading ... the last scene in "Ghosts," whereOswald Alving says:

  "_Mother, give me the sun! The sun!! The Sun!!!_" She shivered and shutthe book with emphasis and threw it on a near-by chair. She spokebrightly, reassuringly. "I'm sure she's devoted to you, dear. You arethe 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 foranything 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. Th
ey have beenplaymates all their lives. That sort of thing rarely merges intoromance."

  "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 ... thetaint in his blood ... the reputation of his family.... Mrs. Lorimersays they've always been called the 'Wild Kings.' Of course Jimsy seemsquite all right, so far, and I hope and pray he always may be--he's adear boy and I'm very fond of him--but, as he grows older and is besetby more temptations----"

  The boy relaxed a little from his pale rigidity and sat down oppositehis mother. He held out his hands to the fire and she saw that they weretrembling. "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'vethought 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 withJimsy. And perhaps you and I can go over for the summer, and take her toSwitzerland with us. Wouldn't that be jolly? You know, dear," shehesitated, delicately, "while we know that money isn't everything, youare going to have far more to offer a girl, some day, than poor JimsyKing."

  "And less," said Carter Van Meter.

  He found Honor a little constrained at their next meeting and he hurriedto put her at her old time ease with him. He steered the talk on to thecoming football game and Honor was herself. Los Angeles High School,champion of Southern California, was to meet Greenmount, the northernchampion, and nothing else in the world mattered very much to her and toJimsy.

  "It's so perfect, Carter, to have it come in Jimsy's last year,--to winthe State Championship for L. A. just before he leaves."

  "Sure of winning?"

  "It will be pretty stiff going. They're awfully good, Greenmount. Not asgood as we are, on the whole, but they've got a punter--Gridley--who's aperfect _wizard_! If they can get within a mile of our goal, he can putit over! But--we've got to win. We've simply got to--and 'You can't beatL. A. High!'"

  She went to watch football practice every afternoon and Carter nearlyalways went with her. In the evenings Jimsy came over for her help withhis lessons. He had studied harder and better, this last year; his finebrain was waking, catching up with his body, but he was busier thanever, too, and his "Skipper" had still to be on deck. He was discovered,that last year, to have an unsuspected talent, Jimsy King. He could act.His class-play was an ambitious one, a late New York success, a play ofsport and youngness, and Jimsy played the lead. "No," the pretty Spanishteacher said, "he didn't play that part; he _was_ it!" It was going tobe fine for him at Stanford, Honor's mothering thought raced ahead. Themore he had to do, the more things he was interested in....

  He came in grinning a few nights before the championship game. "Say,Skipper, what do you think they gave me on that essay? A _B_. A measly_B_. Made me so sore I darn near told 'em who wrote it!"

  "Jimsy! You wrote it yourself, really. I just smoothed it up a little."

  "Yep, just a little! Well, either they're wise, or they just figured itcouldn't be a top-notcher if I'd written it!" He cast himself on thecouch. "Gee, Skipper, I can't work to-night! I'm a dying man! Thatdinner Carter bought me last night----"

  "Jimsy! You didn't--break training?"

  "No. But I skated pretty close to the edge. You know, it's funny, butwhen I'm out with Carter I feel like such a boob, not daring to eat thisor that, or smoke or--or anything." Heresy this, from the three years'captain of L. A. High who had never considered any sacrifice worth amurmur which kept him fit for the real business of life. "Somehow, he'sso keen, he makes me wish I had more in my head and--and less in myheels! 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 timesbigger person than Carter. Everybody knows that. _Knowing_ things isn'teverything--knowing what to wear and how to order meals at theAlexandria and reading all the new books and having been to Europe.Those things just fill in for him; they make up--a little--for thethings you've had."

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

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