Play the Game! Part 17

"But Josita will fetch him in less time, my dear, and we'll have Carter called, too, and----" Mrs. King stopped abruptly at the look in the girl's eyes. "Josita will show you the way," she said in quite another tone. "You must carry my sunshade and not walk too quickly."

Honor tried not to walk too quickly but she kept catching up with the Mexican serving woman and pa.s.sing her on the path, and falling back again with a smile of apology, and the woman smiled in return, showing white, even teeth. It was not as long a walk as it seemed, but their pace made it consume ten interminable minutes. At length the twisting walk twisted once more and gave on a cleared s.p.a.ce, meltingly green, breathlessly still, an ancient stone well in its center.

Josita gestured with a brown hand. "_Alla esta Senorito Don Diego!

Adios, Senorita!_"

"_Gracias!_" Honor managed.

"_Te nada!_" She smiled and turned back along the way they had come. "It is nothing!" she had said. Nothing to have brought her on the last stage of her long quest! Jimsy was asleep in the deep gra.s.s in the shade. She went nearer to him, stepping softly, hardly breathing. He was stretched at ease, his sleeves rolled high on his tanned arms, his tanned throat bare, his crisp hair rolling back from his brow in the old stubborn wave, his thick lashes on his cheek. His skin was as clean and clear as a little boy's; he looked a little boy, sleeping there. She leaned over him and he stirred and sighed happily, as if dimly aware of her nearness. She tried to speak to him, to say--"Jimsy!" but she found she could not manage it, even in a whisper. So she sat down beside him and gathered him into her arms.

CHAPTER XII

They had a whole hour entirely to themselves and it went far toward restoring the years that the locusts had eaten. It was characteristic of them both that they talked little, even after the long ache of silence.

For Jimsy, it was enough to have her there, in his arms, utterly his--to know that she had come to him alone and unafraid across land and sea; and for Honor the journey's end was to find him clear-eyed and clean-skinned and steady. Stephen Lorimer was right when he applied Gelett Burgess' "caste of the articulate" against them; they were very nearly of the "gagged and wordless folk." Yet their silence was a rather fine thing in its way; it expressed them--their simplicity, their large faith. It was not in them to make reproaches. It did not occur to Jimsy to say--"But why didn't you let me know you were coming?--At least you might have let me have the comfort of knowing you were on this side of the ocean!" And Honor never dreamed of saying "But Jimsy,--to rush from Stanford down here without sending me a line!"

Therefore it was somewhat remarkable that it came out, in the brief speeches between the long stillnesses, that Honor knew that Carter had telephoned to his mother as they pa.s.sed through Los Angeles, and that Mrs. Van Meter had spoken of Honor's return, and she had naturally supposed he would tell Jimsy; and that Jimsy had written her a ten page letter, telling with merciless detail of the one wild party of protest in which he had taken part, of his horror and remorse, of his determination to go to his people in Mexico and stay until he was certain he had himself absolutely in hand and had made up his mind about his future.

"Well, it will be sent back to me from Florence," said Honor, contentedly.

"Funny it wasn't there almost as soon as you were--I sent it so long ago!--The night after that party, and I didn't leave for over two weeks, and that makes it--well, anyhow, it's had time to be back. But it doesn't matter now."

"No, it doesn't matter, now, Jimsy. I won't read it when it does come, because it's all ancient history--ancient history that--that never really happened at all! But I'm glad you wrote me, dear!" She rubbed her cheek against his bronzed face.

"Of course I'd tell you everything about it, Skipper."

"Of course you would, Jimsy."

They were just beginning to talk about the future--beyond hurrying back to Jimsy's father--when Carter came for them. He called to them before he came limping into the little cleared s.p.a.ce, which was partly his tact in not wanting to come upon them unannounced, and partly because he didn't want, for his own sake, to find them as he knew he would find them, without warning. As a matter of fact, while Honor lifted her head with its ruffled honey-colored braids from Jimsy's shoulder, he kept his arm about her in brazen serenity.

Carter's eyes contracted for an instant, but he came close to them and held out his hand. "Honor! This is glorious! But why didn't you wire and let us meet you? We never dreamed of your coming! Of course, the mater told me you were on your way home, but I didn't tell old Jimsy here, as long as you hadn't. I knew you meant some sort of surprise. I thought he'd hear from you from L. A. by any mail, now."

"Say, Cart', remember that long letter I wrote Skipper, the night after the big smear?"

"Surely I do," Carter nodded.

"Well, she never got it."

"It pa.s.sed her, of course. It will come back,--probably follow her down here."

"Oh, it'll show up sometime. I gave it to you to mail, didn't I?"

"Yes, I remember it distinctly, because it was the fattest one of yours I ever handled."

He grinned ruefully. "Yep. Had a lot on my chest that night."

"Mrs. King thought you ought to rest before dinner, Honor."

"At least I ought to make myself decent!" She smoothed the collar Jimsy's arms had crumpled, the hair his shoulder had rubbed from its smooth plaits. "She must think I'm weird enough as it is!"

But the Richard Kings had lived long enough in the turbulent _tierra caliente_ to take startling things pretty much for granted. Honor's coming was now a happily accepted fact. A cool, dim room had been made ready for her,--a smooth floor of dull red tiles, some astonis.h.i.+ngly good pieces of furniture which had come, Mrs. King told her when she took her up, from the Government p.a.w.nshop in Mexico City and dated back to the brief glories of Maximilian's period, and a cool bath in a tin tub.

"You are so good," said Honor. "Taking me in like this! It was a dreadful thing to do, but--I had to come to him."

The Englishwoman put her hand on her shoulder. "My dear, it was a topping thing to do. I--" her very blue eyes were pools of understanding. "I should have done it. And we're no end pleased to have you! We get fearfully dull, and three young people are a feast! We'll have a lot of parties and divide you generously with our friends and neighbors--neighbors twenty miles away, my dear! We'll do some theatricals,--Carter says your boy is quite marvelous at that sort of thing."

"Oh, he _is,"_ said Honor, warmly, "but I'm afraid we ought to hurry back to his father!"

"I'll have Richard telegraph. Of course, if he's really bad, you'll have to go, but we do want you to stay on!" She was moving about the big room, giving a brisk touch here and there. "Have your cold dip and rest an hour, my dear. Dinner's at eight. Josita will come to help you." She opened the door and stood an instant on the threshold. Then she came back and took Honor's face between her hands and looked long at her.

"You'll do," she said. "You'll do, my girl! There's no--no royal road with these Kings of ours--but they're worth it!" She dropped a brisk kiss on the smooth young brow and went swiftly out of the room.

To the keen delight of the hosts there was a fourth guest at dinner, a man who was stopping at another _hacienda_ and had come in to tea and been cajoled into staying for dinner and the night. He was a personage from Los Angeles, an Easterner who had brought an invalid wife there fifteen years earlier, had watched her miraculous return to pink plump health and become the typical California-convert. He had established a branch of his gigantic business there and himself rolled semiannually from coast to coast in his private car. Honor and Jimsy were a little awed by touching elbows with greatness but he didn't really bother them very much, for they were too entirely absorbed in each other. He seemed, however, considerably interested in them and looked at them and listened to them genially. The Kings were thirstily eager for news of the northern world; books, plays, games, people--they drank up names and dates and details.

"We must take a run up to the States this year," said Richard King.

"It would be jolly, old dear," said his wife, levelly, her wise eyes on his steady hands. "If the coffee crop runs to it!"

"There you have it," he growled. "If the coffee crop is bad we can't afford to go,--and if it's good we can't afford to leave it!"

"But we needn't mind when we've house parties like this! My word, Rich'--fancy having four house guests at one and the same blessed time!"

She led the way into the long _sala_ for coffee.

"Yes,--isn't it great? Drink?" Richard King held up a half filled decanter toward his guest.

The personage shook his head. "Not this weather, thanks. That enchanted well of yours does me better. Wonderful water, isn't it?"

"Water's all right, but it's a deuce of a nuisance having to carry every drop of it up to the house."

"Really? Isn't it piped?"

"Ah, but it will be one day, Rich'! I expect the first big coffee crop will go there, rather than in a trip to the States. But it is rather a bother, meanwhile."

"But you have no labor question here."

"Haven't we though? With old Diaz gone the old order is changed. This bunch I have here now are bad ones," King shook his head. "They may revolute any minute."

"Oh, Rich'--not really?"

"I daresay they'll lack the energy when it comes to a show-down, Madeline. But this man Villa is a picturesque figure, you know. He appeals to the _peon_ imagination."

The guest was interested. "Yes. Isn't it true that there's a sort of Robin Hood quality about him--steals from the rich to give to the poor--that sort of thing?"

"That's more or less true, but the herd believes it utterly." He sighed.

"It was a black day for us when Diaz sailed."

Jimsy King had been listening. "But, Uncle Rich', they _have_ had a rotten deal, haven't they?"