It was after this summer that the presence of race barrier was felt by Jim and Sara. And somehow, too, after Pen's birthday there was a new restraint between the two boys. Both of them realized then that Pen was more to them than the little playmate they had hitherto considered her. Jim believed that the kiss in the vestibule bound Pen to him irretrievably. But this did not prevent him from feeling uneasy and resentful over Sara's devotion to her.
Nothing could have been more charming to a girl of Pen's age than Sara's way of showing his devotion. Flowers and candy, new books and music he showered on her endlessly, to Mrs. Manning's great disapproval. But Uncle Denny shrugged his shoulders.
"Let it have its course, me dear. 'Tis the surest cure. And Jim must learn to speak for himself, poor boy."
So the pretty game went on. Something in Sara's heritage made him a finished man of the world, while Jim was still an awkward boy. While Jim's affection manifested itself in silent watchfulness, in unobtrusive, secret little acts of thoughtfulness and care, Saradokis was announcing Pen as the Duchess to all their friends and openly singing his joy in her beauty and cleverness.
For even at sixteen Pen showed at times the clear minded thoughtfulness that later in life was to be her chief characteristic. This in spite of the fact that Uncle Denny insisted on her going to a fashionable private school. She read enormously, anything and everything that came to hand. Uncle Denny's books on social and political economy were devoured quite as readily as Jim's novels of adventure or her own Christina Rossetti. And Sara was to her all the heroes of all the tales she read, although after the episode of the Sign and Seal some of the heroes showed a surprising and uncontrollable likeness to Jim. Penelope never forgot the kiss in the vestibule. She never recalled it without a sense of loss that she was too young to understand and with a look in her eyes that did not belong to her youth but to her Celtic temperament.
She looked Jim over keenly when the family came up from the shore and Jim was ready for his senior year. "You never were cut out for city work, Jimmy," she said.
"I'm as fit as I ever was in my life," protested Jim.