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 didn't see how she was going to get through the hours between breakfast and the time to start for the game. It was a relief to see Jimsy coming across the lawn at ten o'clock. She ran out to meet him. "Hello, Jimsy!" "'Lo, Skipper. Isn't this weather the deuce?" "Beastly, but it doesn't really matter. We're certain to----" she broke off and looked closely at him. "Jimsy, what's the matter?" "Oh ... nothing." "Yes, there is! Come on in the house. There's no one home. Stepper's driving Miss Bruce-Drummond and Muzzie's being marcelled." She did not speak again until they were in the living room. "Now, tell me." "Why--it's nothing, really. Feeling kind of seedy, that's all. Didn't have much sleep." "Jimsy! You didn't--you weren't out with Carter?" "Just for a little while. We went to a Movie. Coach told us to--keep our minds off the game. But I was home and in the house at nine-thirty. It was--Dad. He came in about midnight. I--I didn't go to bed at all." "_Oh_...." Her eyes yearned over him, over them both. "Jimsy, I'm so terribly sorry. Is he--how is he now?" "Sleeping. I guess he'll sleep all day. Gee--I wish I could!" His young face looked gray and strained. The girl drew a long breath. "Jimsy, you've got to sleep now. You've got to put it--you've got to put your father away--out of your mind. You don't belong to him to-day; you belong to the team; you belong to L. A.... No matter what's happening to _you_, you've got to do your best--and--and _be_ your best."