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! Skipper! Skipper!_" "Jimsy ... what--what is happening to us? Jimsy, dear, we never before--Jimsy, are we--are we--_Is this being--in love_?" And the mocking-bird of the morning, mounted on the wet Bougainvillaea on the summerhouse in Honor's garden, explained to them in a mad, exultant, thrilling burst of song. CHAPTER VI "At least," Mildred Lorimer wept, "at _least_, Stephen, make them keep it a secret! Make them promise not to tell a living soul--and not to act in such a way as to let people suspect! I think"--she lifted tragic, reproachful eyes to him--"you ought to do what you can, now, considering that it's all your fault." "Some day," said her husband, sturdily, "it will be all my cleverness ... all my glory. I did honestly believe it was a cradle chumship which wouldn't last, Mildred. I thought it would break of its own length. But I'm glad it hasn't." "Stephen, how _can_ you? One of the 'Wild Kings'--I cannot bear it. I simply cannot bear it." She clutched at her hope. "She must go abroad even sooner than we planned--and _stay_ abroad. Stephen, you will make them keep it a secret from every one?" "They've already told Carter. Told him just after they'd told me." "Oh, poor, poor Carter!" There was a note of fresh woe in her voice. He turned sharply to look at her. "So, that's where the pointed patent leather pinches, Mildred?" "What do you mean?" "You've been hoping it would be Carter?" "Dearest, I've looked upon them all as children.... It was the merest ... idea ... thought. Mrs. Van Meter is devoted to Honor, Carter is an unusual boy, and they're exceptional people. And he--of course, I mean in his boyish way--_adores_ Honor. This will be a cruel blow for him." She grieved. "Poor, frail boy...." Stephen Lorimer smoked in silence for a moment. "I fancy Carter will not give up hope. There's nothing frail about his disposition. His will doesn't limp."