But Jimsy King did not go abroad with Mr. and Mrs. Lorimer, after all, and Honor did not see him through the whole dragging summer. Stephen Lorimer, sick with disappointment for his stepdaughter, would have found relief in fixing the blame on his wife, for her lovely and complacent face mirrored her satisfaction at the turn of events, but he could hardly hold her responsible. James King was taken suddenly, alarmingly ill with pneumonia two days before they left Los Angeles to catch their steamer at New York, and it was manifestly impossible for his son to leave him. The doctors gave scant hope of his recovery. Therefore, it was Carter Van Meter who took Jimsy's ticket off his hands and Jimsy's place in the party and the summer plans, leaving his happy mother to spend three flutteringly hopeful months alone. CHAPTER VIII James King, greatly to the surprise of his physicians, did not die, but he hovered on the brink of it for many thin weeks and his son gave up his entire vacation to be with him. The letters he sent Honor were brief bulletins of his father's condition, explosive regrets at having to give up his summer with her, but Jimsy was not a letter writer. In order properly to fill up more than a page it was necessary for him to be able to say, "Had a bully practice to-day," or, "Saw old Duffy last night and he told me all about--" He was not good at producing epistolary bulk out of empty and idle days. Stephen Lorimer, often beside Honor when she opened and read these messages in English Cathedral towns or beside Scotch lakes, ached with sympathy for these young lovers under his benevolent wing because of their inability to set themselves down on paper. He knew that his stepdaughter was very nearly as limited as the boy. "Ethel," he said to Miss Bruce-Drummond who had met up with them for a week-end at Stirling, "those poor children are so pitifully what Gelett Burgess calls 'the gagged and wordless folk'; it would be so much easier--and safer--for them if they belonged to his 'caste of the articulate.'" She nodded. "Yes. It's rather frightful, really, to separate people who have no means of communication. Especially when--" she broke off, looking at Carter who was pointing out to Honor what he believed to be the Field of Bannockburn. Stephen Lorimer shook his head. "No danger there," he said comfortably. "Top Step is sorry for him--a creature of another, paler world ... infinitely beneath her bright and beamish boy's. No, I feel a lot safer to have Carter with her than with Jimsy King." The Englishwoman stared. "Really?" "Yes. I daresay I exaggerate, but I've always seen something sinister about that youth." Miss Bruce-Drummond looked at Carter Van Meter and observed the way in which he was looking at Honor. "He wants her frightfully, doesn't he, poor thing?"