She tried to free herself.

"Honor, I can't help it. I've got to speak. I've got to know. Don't
you--couldn't you--care at all for me, Honor?"

"Carter! Not--not the way you mean! Of course I'm fond of you, but----"

"I don't want that!" He shook her, roughly, and his voice was harsh. "I
want you to care the way I care. And I'm going to make you!"

"Carter," she was not angry with him, only unhappy, "do you think this
is fair? Do you think you're being square with Jimsy?"

"No," he said, hotly, "and I don't care. I don't care for anything but
you. Honor, you don't love Jimsy King. I know it. It's just a silly,
boy-and-girl thing--you must realize that, now you're away from him!
Your mother doesn't want you to marry him. What can he give you or do
for you? And he'll go the way of his father and all his family--I've
tried to lie to you, but I'm telling you the truth now, Honor. He's
drinking already, and he'll grow worse and worse. Give him up, Honor!
Give him up before he spoils your life, and let me--" with all his
strength, far more than she would have thought it possible for him to
have, he tried to pull her into his arms, to reach her lips.

But Jimsy's Skipper, for all her two soft years in Europe, had not lost
her swimming, hiking, driving, out-of-door vigor, and her muscles were
better than his.

"I'm going to kiss you," said Carter, huskily. "I've wanted to kiss you
for years ... always ... and I'm going to kiss you now!"

"No, you're not, Carter," said Honor. She got her arms out of his grasp
and caught his wrists in her hands. She was very white and her eyes were
cold. "You see? You're weak. You're weak in your arms, Carter, just as
you're weak in your--in your character, in your friendship! And I
despise weakness." She dropped his wrists and saw him sit down, limply,
in the nearest chair and cover his face with his hands. Then she walked
to the stairs and went up without a backward glance.

He was pallid and silent at breakfast next morning and Honor was careful
not to look at him. It was beginning to seem, in the eight o'clock
sunlight, as if the happening of the night before must have been a
horrid dream, and her sense of anger and scorn gradually gave way to
pity. After all ... poor old Carter, who had so little ... Jimsy, who
had so much! What Carter had said in his tirade about Jimsy's drinking
she did not believe; it was simply temper; angry exaggeration. Mildred
Lorimer, looking at Carter's whi