ham rolled away.
Eloise had seized and squeezed her surreptitiously in the hall before
they came out.

"I do feel braced up, Jewel. Thank you," she whispered hurriedly.

"Is the man over at the golf links?" asked the child, surprised to see
that Eloise and her grandfather were going out together.

"He will be by the time I get there," returned the girl.

As soon as the carriage door had closed and they had started, Eloise
spoke. "You must think it very strange that I asked this of you,
grandfather."

There was a hint of violets clinging to the fresh white garments that
brushed Mr. Evringham's knee.

"I would not question the gifts the gods provide;" he returned.

She seemed able to rise above the fear of his sarcasms. "Not that
you would be surprised at anything mother or I might ask of you," she
continued bravely, "but I have suffered, I'm sure, as much as you have
during the last two months."

"Indeed? I regret to hear that."

If there was a sting in this reply, Eloise refused to recognize it.

"In fact I have felt so much that it has made it impossible hitherto to
say anything, but Jewel has given me courage."

Mr. Evringham smoothed his mustache. "She has plenty to spare," he
returned.

"She says," went on Eloise, "that everything that isn't love is hate;
and hate, of course, in her category is unreal. It is because I want the
real things, because I long for real things, for truth, that I asked to
have this talk, grandfather, and I wanted to be quite alone with you, so
I thought of this way."

"It's the mater she's running away from, then," reflected her companion.
He nodded courteously. "I am at your disposal," he returned.

Subtly the broker's feeling toward Eloise had been changing since the
evening in which Jewel wrote to her parents. His hard and fast opinion
of her had been slightly shaken. The frankness of her remarks on
Christian Science in the presence of Dr. Ballard the other evening had
been a surprise to him. The cold, proud, noncommittal, ease-loving girl
who in his opinion had decided to marry the young doctor was either less
designing than he had believed, or else wonderfully certain of her own
power to hold him. He found himself regarding her with new interest.

"I've been waiting for mother to talk with you," she went on, "and clear
up our position; but she does not, and so I must." The speaker's hands
were tightly clasped in her lap. "I wish I had Jewel's unconsciousness,
her cer