really seemed to
be having a happy summer and to enjoy everything, and that she was not
very keen to talk much about Jimsy.

He did not hear the talk she had with her stepfather the night before
they were to sail for home. It came after her hour of fruitless pleading
with her mother to be allowed to go back with them. Mildred Lorimer had
stood firm, and Stephen had been silent and Carter had sided with
Honor's mother.

"It really would be rather a shame, Honor,--much as we'd love having you
with us on the trip home. You're coming on so wonderfully with your
work, the _Signorina_ says. She intends to have you in concert this
winter, and coming home would spoil that, wouldn't it?" He was very
sensible about it.

Honor had managed to ask Stephen to see her alone, after the rest had
gone to their rooms. They were sailing from Genoa because they had
wanted to bring Honor back to Italy and the _Signorina_ had joined them
at the port and would take the girl back to Florence with her. Honor
went upstairs and came down again in fifteen minutes and found him
waiting for her in the lounge.

He got up and came to meet her and took her hands into his solid and
reassuring clasp. "This is pretty rough, Top Step. You don't have to
tell me."

She did not, indeed. Her young face was drained of all its color that
night and her eyes looked strained. It was mildly warm and the windows
were open, but she was shivering a little. "Stepper, dear, I don't want
to be a goose----"

"You're not, Top Step."

"But I'm anxious. When Jimsy gave me this ring, and told me what he had
told his father--that he was not going to be another 'Wild King' and
asked me if I believed him, I told him I'd never stop believing him, and
I won't, Skipper. I won't!"

"Right, T. S."

"But--things Carter says,--things he doesn't say--Stepper, I think Jimsy
needs me _now_."

The man was silent for a long moment. He could, of course, assert his
authority or at least his power, since the girl was Mildred's child and
not his, break with his good friend, the _Signorina_, and take Honor
home. But, after all, what would that accomplish, unless she went to
Stanford? He began to think aloud. "Even if you came home with us, Top
Step, you wouldn't be near him, would you, unless you went to college?
And you'd hardly care to do that now--to enter your Freshman year two
years behind the boys."

"No."

"And if you stayed in Los Angeles--you might almost as well be here