r-eyed, more utterly and completely happy and content than she
had ever been in her life, turned penitently to Miss Bruce-Drummond.
"When we get home," she said, "I'll explain to you exactly what a 'down'
is!"

They waited to see the joyous serpentine, to watch Jimsy's struggles to
get down from the shoulders of his adorers who bore him the length of
the field and back, and then Carter drove them home and went back for
the Captain, who would be showered and dressed by that time. They were
both dining with Honor, but Jimsy looked in on his father first.

"Gusty says he's slept all day," he reported to Honor. He kept looking
at her, with an odd intensity, all through the lively meal. She had
changed her wet white jersey for one of her long-lined, cleverly simple
frocks of L. A. blue, and her honey-colored braids were like a crown
above her serene forehead.

"You know, Stephen," said Miss Bruce-Drummond while they were having
their coffee in the living room, "of course you know that both those
lads are in love with your nice girl."

"Do you see it, too?"

She laughed. "I may not know what a 'down' is, but I've still reasonably
sharp eyes in my head. And the odd thing is that she doesn't know it."

"Isn't it amazing? I'm watching, and wondering."

"It's a pretty time o' life, Stephen," said one of the clever women he
hadn't wanted to marry.

"'Youth's sweet-scented manuscript,' Ethel," said Honor's stepfather.

"Jimsy, will you come here a minute?" Honor called from the dining-room
door.

"Yes, Skipper!" He was there at a bound.

"Don't you think your father would like this water-ice? I think he
could--I believe he might enjoy it."

He took the little covered tray out of her hands. "I'll bet he will,
Skipper. You're a brick. Come on over with me, will you--and wait on the
porch?"

She looked back into the roomful. "Had I better? I don't suppose they'll
miss me for a minute----"

But Carter Van Meter was coming toward them, threading his way among
people and furniture with his slight, halting limp. He looked from one
to the other, questioningly.

"Taking this over to my Dad," Jimsy explained. "Back in a shake."

"I see. How about a ride to the beach? Supper at the ship-hotel?
Celebrate a little?"

"Deuce of a lot of work for Monday," Jimsy frowned. "Haven't studied a
lick this week."

Carter laughed. "Oh, Monday's--Monday! Come along! We can't"--he turned
to Honor--"be by ourselves to-night, with the