"I'll sure be friends with her, if I have a show," he said. "She's easily the prettiest kid I ever saw. But Jim doesn't seem very anxious to introduce me. Maybe next term——" He shrugged, but regarded Stephanie with wistful golden eyes.
After the gates were opened, and when at last the school boys had departed and the train was gone, Stephanie remained tragically preoccupied with her personal loss in the departure of Cleland Junior. For he was the first boy she had ever known; and she worshipped him with all the long-pent ardour of a lonely heart.
Memory of the sandy youth with golden eyes continued in abeyance, although he had impressed her. It had, in fact, been a new experience for her to be noticed by an older boy; and, although she considered young Grismer homely and a trifle insolent, there remained in her embryonic feminine consciousness the grateful aroma of incense swung before her—incense not acceptable, but still unmistakably incense—the subtle flattery of man.
As for young Grismer, reconciliation between him and Jim having been as pleasantly effected as the forcible feeding of a jailed lady on a hunger strike, he sauntered up to Cleland Junior in the car reserved for Saint James School, and said amiably:
"Who was the little peach you kissed good-bye, Jim?"
The boy's clear brown eyes narrowed just a trifle.
"She's—my—sister," he drawled. "What about it?"
"She's so pretty—for a kid—that's all."
Jim, eyeing him menacingly, replied in the horrid vernacular:
"That's no sty on your eye, is it?"