[Pg 44] [Pg 44] CHAPTER IV When they told Marcia Van Meter (Mrs. Horace Flack) that her little boy would always be lame, that not one of the great surgeon-wizards on either side of the Atlantic—not all the king's horses and all the king's men could ever weight or wrench or force the small, thin left leg down to the length of the right, she vowed to herself that she would make it up to him. She was a pretty thing, transparently frail and ethereal-looking, who had always projected herself passionately into the lives of those about her—her father's and mother's—the young husband's who had died soon after her son was born—and now her boy's. While he was less than ten years old it seemed to her that she compassed it; if he could not race and run with his contemporaries he rode the smartest of ponies and drove clever little traps; if he might not join in the rough sports out of doors he had a houseful of brilliant mechanical toys; he lived like a little Prince—like a little American Prince with a magic[Pg 45] bottomless purse at his command. But when he left his little boyhood behind she discovered her futility; she discovered the small, pitiful purchasing power of money, after all. She could not buy him bodily strength and beauty; she could not buy him fellowship in the world of boys; he was forever looking out at it, wistfully, disdainfully, bitterly, through his plate glass window. [Pg 45] She spent herself untiringly for him,—playmates, gifts, tutors, journeys. Her happiest moments were those in which he said, "Mother, I'd like one of those wireless jiggers,"—or a new saddle-horse, or a new roadster—and she was able to answer, "Dearest, I'll get it for you! Mother'll get it for you to-morrow!" But the days when she could spell omnipotence for him were fading away. He wanted now, increasingly, things beyond her gift. He was a clever boy, proud, poised. He learned early to wear a mask of indifference about his lameness, to affect a coolness for sports which came, eventually, to be genuine. He studied easily and well; he could talk with a brilliancy beyond his years. He learned—astonishingly, at his age—to get his deepest satisfactions from creature comforts—his quietly elegant clothes, his food, his surroundings. Mrs. Van Meter had high hopes[Pg 46] of the move to Los Angeles; he was to be benefited, body and brain. She was a little anxious at finding they had moved into a neighborhood of boys and girls; Carter was happier with older people, but he seemed to like these
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