She meant young James, who was now putting the finishing touches on his sophomore year at Yale. James was never very far from her mind when her thoughts ran to her own children--which was most of the time. She always thought of him now more as her own eldest child than as her husband's nephew.
And Harry's thoughts, beneath all his chatter to his uncle and aunt and his transactions with the Customs officials, were also on James. All the way across the Atlantic, on the long dull voyage from Gibraltar--there are not many passengers traveling westward in June--they continually ran on that one subject--James, James, James. What would he be like now? would he be the old James, or changed, somehow--strangely, disappointingly, unacceptably? Harry hoped not; hoped it with his whole heart, in which there was nothing but humility and affection when he thought of what his brother had been to him in the old days. He was so little able to speak what he felt about James that he was embarrassed and over-silent about him. That was why he was so debonair with the Customs officials; that was why he asked after each of his young cousins by name before he mentioned his brother.
"Every single article of clothing I own was bought abroad," he was telling the Customs inspector; "so you can just go ahead and do your worst--That suit cost eight guineas--yes, I know it's too much; I told them so at the time, but they wouldn't listen.... No, that thing with the feathers is not a woman's hat; it's a Tyrolean hat, that the men climb mountains in. I'm going to give it to my Uncle James--that man there sitting on the woman's trunk that she wants to get into--to wear to his office, which is on the thirty-fifth floor.... Yes, I have worn it myself, but don't tell him.... That gold cigarette case is for my brother, who smokes when he's not playing football, and it cost six pound fifteen, which is dirt cheap, I say. I'd keep it myself, except that it's so cheap that I can't afford not to give it away...."
And James, what was he feeling, if he was feeling anything, in regard to his brother at this time, and why have we said nothing about him during these seven years? The truth is, his life had been chiefly distinguished by the blessed uneventfulness that comes of outward happiness and a good understanding with the world. If you can draw a mental picture for yourself of a boy of perfect physique and untarnished mind, gradually attaining the physical and mental development of manhood in comradeship with a hundred or more others in a like position, dedicating the use of each gift as it came to him not to his own aggrandizement but to the glory of God and the service of other men, recognizing his superiority in certain fields with the same humility with which he beheld his inferiority in others, equally willing to give help where he was strong and take help where he was weak, and possessed by the fundamental conviction that other people were just as good as he if not a little bit better, you may get some idea of James during the years of his brother's absence. He was not brilliant, he was not handsome, but there was a splendid normality about him, both in appearance and in character, that inspired confidence and affection among his teachers, his relatives, and friends of his own age.