"Yes," said Honor, lightly. "That would hardly do,—to come alone from Italy and then get myself run over on my own street. What's that Kipling thing Stepper quotes:
To sail unscathed from a heathen land
And be robbed on a Christian coast!
Well, good-night, Mrs. Van Meter, and good-by, and I'll write you how Carter is!"
The older woman put her arms about her and held her close. "Dearest girl, Carter told me not to breathe to any one, not even to your mother, about—about what happened last summer—and—and what he asked you, and I haven't, but I must tell you how glad...." then, at the bewilderment in Honor's face in the light of the porch lamp,—"he showed me the telegram you sent him to the steamer."
"Oh,—I remember!" Her brief wire to him, promising to forgive and forget his wild words of the evening before. She had quite forgiven, and she had so nearly forgotten that she could not imagine, at first, what his mother meant. And now, because the older woman was trembling, and because Carter must have told her of how he had lost control of himself and been for a moment false to his friend, she gave back the warm embrace and kissed the pale cheek. "Yes. And I meant it, Mrs. Van Meter!"
"You blessed child!" Marcia Van Meter wiped her eyes. "You've made me very happy."
Honor ran across Figueroa Street between flashing headlights on automobiles, and her heart was soft within her. Poor old Cartie! How he must have grieved and reproached himself, and how seriously he must have taken it, to tell his mother! Fancy not forgiving people! Her stepfather had marked a passage for her in her pocket "R. L. S."... "The man who cannot forgive any mortal thing is a green hand in life," Stevenson had said. Honor believed him. She could even forgive James King, poor, proud, miserable James King, for failing Jimsy. It was because he cared so much. As she started up her own walk some one called to her from the steps of the King house.
"That you, Honor?"