Jewel: A Chapter in Her Life Part 56

"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."

"Yes, so long as they believe a cure to be only alleged; but where one is convinced that previously hopeless conditions have been healed, and it does happen once in a while, they are glad of it, I'm confident. We haven't a finer, broader minded cla.s.s of men in our country than our physicians."

"I think so," agreed Mrs. Evringham, drawing herself up with a fleeting vision of the Ballard place on Mountain Avenue.

"But they are not the wealthiest at the start," said Nat. "Is it possible that you are allowing Eloise to ride unchaperoned with a young physician?"

Mrs. Evringham did not remark the threatening curves at the corners of the speaker's lips.

"Oh, this one is different," she returned seriously; "very fine connections, and substantial in _every_ way."

Her companion threw back his head and laughed frankly.

"We have to smile at each other once in a while, don't we, Mrs.

Evringham?" he said, in the light, caressing manner which had for a few years been one of her chief worries; "but all the same, you're fond of me just as long as I don't forget my place, eh? You're glad to see me?"

"You know I am." Mrs. Evringham pressed her hand against the laces over her heart. "Such a bittersweet feeling comes over me at the very tones of your voice. Oh, the happy past, Nat! Gone forever!" She touched a dainty handkerchief to her eyes. "I suppose your mother is still in her apartment?"

"She has taken a place at View Point for the summer, and has set her heart on a long visit from you."

"How very kind of her," responded Mrs. Evringham with genuine grat.i.tude.

"I don't know what father means to do in the hot weather or whether he--or whether I should wish to go with him. Your mother and I always enjoyed each other, when she was sufficiently free from suffering."

"That time is always now," returned Nat, a fullness of grat.i.tude in his voice.

His companion looked at him curiously. "I can't realize it."

"Come and see," was his reply.

"I will, I certainly will. I shall antic.i.p.ate it with great pleasure."

A very convenient place to prepare a part of Eloise's trousseau, Mrs.

Evringham was considering, and the girl safely engaged, Nat's presence would have no terrors. "You think you are really getting into a good business arrangement now?" she asked aloud.

"Very. I wake up in the morning wondering at my own good fortune."

"I am so glad, my dear boy," responded the other sympathetically.

"Perhaps, after all, you will be able to wait for a little more chin than Miss Caton has. Of course she's a very _nice_ girl and all that."

Bonnell smiled at the carpet.

They talked on for half an hour of mutual friends over cups of tea, and then he rose to go.

"Eloise will be sorry!" said Mrs. Evringham effusively. "It's such a long way out here and so difficult for you to get the time. It isn't as if you could come easily."

"Oh, I have several days here. I'm staying at the Reeves's. Do you know them?"

"No," returned the lady, trying to conceal that this was a blow.

"It is Mr. Reeves with whom I am going into business, and we are doing some preliminary work. I shall see Eloise soon. Remember me to her."

"Yes, certainly," replied Mrs. Evringham. She kept a stiff upper lip until she was alone, and then a troubled line grew in her forehead.

"It will be all right, of course, if things are settled," she thought.

"I can scarcely wait for Eloise to come home."

Jewel had come from the barn straight to her room, where she thought upon her problem with the aids she loved.

At last she went downstairs to a side door to watch for Zeke as he drove from the barn on his way to the station to meet Mr. Evringham. As the horse walked out of the barn she emerged and intercepted the coachman.

Mrs. Forbes at a window saw Zeke stop. She wondered what Jewel was saying to him, wondered with a humble grat.i.tude novel to her dominating nature.

"Wait one minute, Zeke," said the child. "I've been wondering whether I ought to say anything to grandpa."

"If you do I'll lose my place," returned the young fellow; "and I've never done wrong by the horses yet."

"I know you haven't. G.o.d has taken care of you, hasn't he, Zeke? Do you think it's right for me not to tell grandpa? I've decided that I'll do whatever you say."

It was the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove. Zeke, nervously fingering the whip handle, looked down into the guileless face and mentally vowed never to betray the trust he saw there.

"Then don't tell him, Jewel," he returned rather thickly, for the fullness in his throat. "You come out to the barn the way you said you would, and we'll talk over things. I don't care if the boys do laugh.

I've sworn off. I believe you helped Ess.e.x Maid the other night. I believe you can help me."

Jewel's eyes were joyful. "If you know you _want_ help, Zeke, then you'll get it. Mother says that's the first thing. Mortal mind is so proud."

"Mine ain't strutting much," returned Zeke as he drove on.

Jewel amused herself about the grounds until the phaeton should return with her grandfather.

When she saw it coming she ran down to the gate and hopped and skipped back beside it, Mr. Evringham watching her gyrations unsmilingly.

As he dismounted at the piazza she clung to his hand going up the steps.

"Which are you going to do, grandpa, go riding or play golf?"

"Which do you want me to do?" he asked.

"When you ride it's more fun for me," she replied.

He seated himself in one of the chairs and she leaned against its broad arm.

"It's rather more fun for me, too. I'm growing lazy. I think I'll ride."

"Good!"

"What have you been doing to-day, Jewel?"

"Well,"--meditatively,--"cousin Eloise went to New York, so I had to get my lesson alone. And I didn't braid my hair over."