But the days when she could spell omnipotence for him were fading away. He wanted now, increasingly, things beyond her gift. He was a clever boy, proud, poised. He learned early to wear a mask of indifference about his lameness, to affect a coolness for sports which came, eventually, to be genuine. He studied easily and well; he could talk with a brilliancy beyond his years. He learned--astonishingly, at his age--to get his deepest satisfactions from creature comforts--his quietly elegant clothes, his food, his surroundings. Mrs. Van Meter had high hopes of the move to Los Angeles; he was to be benefited, body and brain. She was a little anxious at finding they had moved into a neighborhood 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 than Jimsy King but two years ahead of him in his studies, was doing some special work at the University of Southern California, but his time was practically his own--to spend with Honor and Jimsy. Honor and Jimsy showed, each of them, the imprint of their association with him. They had come to care more for the things he held high ... books ... theaters ... dinners at the Crafts Alexandria ... Grand Opera records on the victrola ... more careful dress. "Carter has really done a great deal for those children," Mildred Lorimer told her husband, complacently. "Yes," Stephen admitted. "It's true. He has. And"--he sighed--"they haven't done a thing for him." "Stephen dear,--what could they do--crude children that they are, beside a boy with his advantages? What could they do for him?--Make him play football? What did you expect them to do?" "I don't know," he said, moodily, "but at any rate they haven't done it." Jimsy King was going--by the grace of his own frantic eleventh hour efforts and his teachers' clemency and Honor Carmody--to graduate. Barring calamities, he would possess a diploma in February. Honor was tremendously earnest about it; Carter, to whom learning came as easily as the air he breathed, faintly amused. She thought, sometimes, for brief, traitorous moments, that Carter wasn't always good for Jimsy. "You see," she explained to her stepfather, "Carter doesn't realize how hard Jimsy has to grind for all he gets. Even now, Stepper, after being here a year, he actually doesn't realize the importance of Jimsy's getting signed up to play. It's a strange thing, with all his cleverness, but he doesn't, and he's always taking Jimsy out on parties and rides and things, and he gets behind in everything. I think I'll just 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?"