the fraternity house, simmering with red rage, and the committee,
regretful but adamant.) The college career, the gay, brilliant, adored
college career of Jimsy King was at an end. Honor's stepfather had taken
great care to have the real facts in Jimsy's case printed--he sent the
clipping from the Los Angeles paper--and he had spent an evening with
James King, setting forth the truth of the case. But the fact remained
for the majority of people, gaining in sinister weight with every
repetition, that the last of the "Wild Kings" had been expelled from
Stanford University for drinking.

"Top Step," her stepfather wrote, "I'm sick with rage and
indignation. Your mother is taking it very hard--as is most every
one else. 'Expelled' is not a pretty word. I'm doing my level best
to put the truth before the public, to show that your boy is really
something of a hero in this matter, in that he might be snugly safe
at this moment if he had been willing to tell a politic lie. You'll
be unhappy over this, T. S., that's inevitable, but--I give you my
word--you need not hang your head. Jimsy played the game."

Carter, who had written seldom since the happening of the summer in
spite of her kind and casual replies to his letters, sent her now six
reassuring pages. She was not to worry. Jimsy was really doing very
well, as far as the drinking went, and he--Carter--would not let him do
anything foolish or desperate in his indignation. Three times he
repeated that she must not be anxious. A dozen times in the letter he
showed her where she might well be anxious. The word beat itself in upon
her brain until she could endure it no longer, and she went out through
the pretty streets of Florence to the cable office and sent Stephen
Lorimer one of her brief and urgent messages, "_Anxious_." Two days
later she had his answer and it was as short as her own had been,
"_Come_."

There was a stormy scene with the _Signorina_. The waves of her fury
rolled up and up and broke, crashing, over Honor's rocklike calm. At
last, breathless, her fat face mottled with temper, "Go, then," said the
singer, and went out of the room with heavy speed and slammed the door
resoundingly. But she went with Honor to her steamer at Naples and
embraced her forgivingly. "Go with God," she wept. "Live a little; it is
best, perhaps. Then, my good small one, come back to me."

Like all simple and direct persons Honor found re