It was happily clear at breakfast that Stephen Lorimer had more or less made his peace—and Honor's peace—with his wife. Like his beloved Job, whom he knew almost by heart, he had ordered his cause and filled his mouth with arguments, and Mildred Lorimer had come to see something rather splendidly romantic in her daughter's quest for her true love. Stephen, who never appeared at breakfast, was down on time, heavy-eyed and flushed, and Honor saw with a pang, in the stern morning light, that he was middle-aged. Her gay young stepfather! His spirit had put a period at nineteen, but his tired body was settling back into the slack lines of the late fifties. Her mother had changed but little, thanks to the unruffled serenity of her spirit and the skillful hands which cared for her.
"Muzzie," Honor had said, meeting her alone in the morning, "you are a marvel! Why, you haven't a single gray hair!"
"It's—well, I suppose it's because I have it taken care of," said Mrs. Lorimer, flushing faintly. "It's not a dye. It's not in the least a dye—it simply keeps the original color in the hair, that's all. I wouldn't think of using a dye. In the first place, they say it's really dangerous,—it seeps into the brain and affects your mind, and in the second place it gives your face a hard look, always,—and besides, I don't approve of it. But this thing Madame uses for me is perfectly harmless, Honor."
"It's perfectly charming, Muzzie," said her daughter, giving her a hearty hug. It was a good world this morning. The breakfast table was gay, and Kada beamed. Takasugi had made countless pop-overs—Honor's favorites—and Kada was slipping in and out with heaping plates of them. "Pop-all-overs" the littlest Lorimer called them, steaming, golden-hearted. Honor had sung for them and the Old Guard the night before and even the smallest of the boys was impressed and was treating her this morning with an added deference which flowered in many passings of the marmalade and much brotherly banter. The girl herself was radiant. Nothing could be very wrong in a world like this. Suppose Jimsy had slipped once—twice—half a dozen times, when she was far away across the water? One swallow didn't make a spring and one slip (or several) didn't make a "Wild King" out of Jimsy. She was going to find him and talk it over and straighten it out and bring him back here where he belonged, where they both belonged, where they would stay. His expulsion from Stanford really simplified matters, when you came to think of it; now there need be no tiresome talk of waiting until he graduated from college. And she had not the faintest intention of going back to Italy. Just as soon as Jimsy could find something to do (and her good Stepper would see to that) they would be married and move into the old King house, and how she would love opening it up to the sun and air and making it gay with new colors! All this in her quiet mind while she breakfasted sturdily with her noisy tribe. Good to be with them again, better still to be coming back to them, to stay with them, to live beside them, always.
Her train went at ten and the boys would be in school and her mother had an appointment with the lady whose ministrations kept her hair at its natural tint and Honor would not hear of her breaking it, so it was her stepfather only who took her to the station. She was rather glad of that and it made her put an unconscious extra fervor, remorsefully, into her farewells to the rest. Just as she was leaving her room there was a thump on her door and a simultaneous opening of it. Ted, her eldest Carmody brother, came in and closed the door behind him. He was a Senior at L. A. High, a football star of the second magnitude and a personable youth in all ways, and her heart warmed to him.
"Ted,—dear! I thought you'd gone to school!"
"I'm just going. Sis,—I"—he came close to her, his bonny young face suddenly scarlet—"I just wanted to say—I know why you're going down there, and—and I'm for you a million! He's all right, old Jimsy. Don't you let anybody tell you he isn't. I—you're a sport to pike down there all by yourself. You're all right, Sis! I'm strong for you!"
"Ted!" The distance between them melted; she felt the hug of his hard young arms and there was a lump in her throat and tears in her eyes, but she fought them back. He would be aghast at her if she cried. He wouldn't be for her a million any longer. She must not break down though she felt more like it than at any time since her arrival. She kept silent and let him pat her clumsily and heavily till she could command her voice. "I'm glad you want me to go, Teddy."
"You bet I do. You stick, Sis! And don't you let Carter spill the beans!"
"Why, Ted, he——"