should
be the first to be told, for I always talked to you very plainly, didn't
I?"

"Indeed you did, Mrs. Evringham. You always kept my ineligibility before
me strenuously."

"A certain _sort_ of ineligibility, dear boy," returned the lady with
a flattering cadence. "Your capital did not happen to consist of money.
Tell me all, Nat. Who is she?"

He shook his head. "She's still not impossible, but improbable," he
returned.

"Oh, you are too difficult, my dear. Really, I thought at the time our
misfortunes fell upon us that it was going to be Miss Caton. She would
have been a great assistance to you, Nat. It isn't as if you could even
afford to be a bachelor. In these days so much is expected of them. How
is your mother?" Mrs. Evringham made the addition in that tone of
fixed sympathy which one employs when only a depressing answer can be
expected.

"Very well, thank you."

"You mean as well as usual, I suppose."

"No, I mean well. Wonderful, isn't it?"

"Really, Nat?" Mrs. Evringham straightened up in her interest. "Who did
it?"

"She was healed by Christian Science."

"You don't mean it!"

"Indeed I do."

Mrs. Evringham thanked her holy stars that Eloise was absent.

"Well! I never for one moment classed your mother as a _malade
imaginaire_!" exclaimed the lady.

Her companion raised his eyebrows. "I fancy no one did who knew her."

"You believe it, then?"

"I should be an idiot if I didn't."

"Do you mean to say she is out of her wheeled chair?"

"No chairs for her now. When she wishes to walk she walks."

"Then she always could!" declared Mrs. Evringham.

"I think you know better than that," returned the other calmly.

"How long since?" asked Mrs. Evringham.

"Three months."

Silence.

"Aren't you glad for her?" asked Bonnell with a slight smile of
curiosity into the disturbed face. "I ought to have told you at first
that osteopathy did it; then after your joy had subsided, break the
truth gently."

"Of course I'm glad," returned the other stiffly, "but I'd rather Eloise
did not hear of it at once."

"May I know why?"

"Certainly. We have a very dear friend who is a physician. It looks very
much as if he might be something nearer than a friend. It is he with
whom Eloise is riding this afternoon. It is very distasteful, naturally,
to have these alleged cures discussed in our family. We have had some
annoyance in that line already. You can understand how doctors must
feel."