human
Ethel, he said to Miss Bruce-Drummond who had met up with them for a week-end at Stirling,
gpt
Yes. It's rather frightful, really, to separate people who have no means of communication. Especially when--
human
No danger there, he said comfortably.
gpt
Top Step is sorry for him--a creature of another, paler world ... infinitely beneath her bright and beamish boy's. No, I feel a lot safer to have Carter with her than with Jimsy King.
human
Really?
gpt
Yes. I daresay I exaggerate, but I've always seen something sinister about that youth.
human
He wants her frightfully, doesn't he, poor thing?
gpt
He wants her frightfully but he isn't a poor thing in the very least. He is an almost uncannily clever and subtle young person for his years, with a very large income and a fanatically devoted mother behind him, and he's had everything he ever wanted all his life except physical perfection,--and my good Top Step.
human
Ah, yes, but what can he do, after all?
gpt
He knows that she would not be allowed to marry the lad if he went the way of the other 'Wild Kings,'--that she is too sound and sane to insist on it. And I think--I thought even in their High School days--that he deliberately steers Jimsy into danger.
human
My word! said the novelist, hotly.
gpt
What are you going to do about it, Stephen?
human
Watch. Wait. Stand ready. I shall make it my business to drop in at the fraternity house once or twice next season, when I go north to San Francisco,--and into other fraternity houses, and put my ear to the ground. And if I find what I fear to find I'll take it up with both the lads, face to face, and then I'll send for Honor.
gpt
Right! said Miss Bruce-Drummond, her fine, fresh-colored face glowing.
human
And I'll run down to Florence at the Christmas holidays and take her to Rome with me, shall I?
gpt
It will be corking of you, Ethel.
human
I shall love doing it.
gpt
Ethel, he said, suddenly,
human
Ah, yes, that book of yours, Stephen! Slothful creature! You know quite well you'll never do it.
gpt
Never do it! Why, --he was indignant--
human
I've got tons of it done already, in my head! It only wants writing down.
gpt
Yes, yes, said his friend, penitently,
human
I make no doubt. It only wants writing down. Well?
gpt
I'm going to have a chapter on friendship, and insert a really novel idea. Friendship has never been properly praised,--begging pardon in passing of Mr. Emerson and his ilk. I'm going to suggest that it be given dignity and weight by having licenses and ceremonies, just as marriage has. It has a better right, you know, really. It's a much saner and more probable vow--to remain friends all one's life, than in love. In genuine friendship there is indeed no variableness, neither shadow or turning. You and I, now, might quite safely have taken out our friendship license and plighted our troth,--twenty years, isn't it?
human
Yes, said Miss Bruce-Drummond, gently,