e this a normal state of things. Still, it might be
worse, lots worse. I'm not nearly so soggy as I was. Which reminds me:
do you mind going to the bottom of that heap of letters and taking out
the square gray one. Yes. That's it. Now read it. I've saved it up for
your delight."

There came a silence, broken only by the noise of unfolded paper. Then
Olive looked up.

"Reed! The--"

"Don't swear, Olive," he admonished her, and now his eyes were wholly
mirthful.

"I wasn't going to. I was only hunting for a suitable epithet. How does
she dare?"

"Dare take unto herself the glory of what she calls my incipient cure?
I wish I thought it was that; but vertebrae are vertebrae, in spite of
all the Christian Scientists in all creation. As for her claim, though,
she's got us there, Olive. One can't well prove an alibi, when it's a
case of absent treatment. Still, I must say I like her nerve."

"When did this thing come?" And Olive cast the letter from her, with a
sudden fury which, for the instant, downed her sense of humour utterly.

"Only to-day. I had meant to try a chair, to-morrow; but, in view of
her predictions, I'll be hanged if I will. She would go to cackling
forth that it was all her doing. How do you suppose she knew anything
about me, anyway?"

"Spies, probably. Those people will stoop to anything to carry on their
cause," Olive said tartly.

"Then one ought to feel a sneaking admiration for their _esprit du
corps_, at least. In fact, if you translate the phrase literally
enough, it holds the very nubbin of their whole belief. But I hope you
noted the clause concerning Brenton. I am glad she even feels so much
of interest in him."

Olive settled back in her chair, and yielded up her creed of married
life briefly, trenchantly.

"Reed, if I owned a husband, I'd focus my mind upon his breakfasts and
his buttonholes and his entertainment of an evening. That's what men
want, not hifalutin' mind cures delivered at long range." Then she
repented. "Still, I'm not fair to Mrs. Brenton, Reed. She doesn't
interest me in the least."

"Does Brenton?" Reed asked. And then he shut his teeth, as he waited
for the reply.

The reply, when it came, was direct.

"Yes, Reed; he does, intensely. He is a mass of brilliant possibilities
that all are going wrong. Moreover, I can't help a feeling I could help
him, if I would. I know that sometimes I have seen farther inside his
mind than even he knows, and it has given me