After an internal debate he decided not to call on Phillida this afternoon. It might lead to a scene, a scene might bring on a catastrophe. But, as fortune would have it, Phillida was on her return from the Mission, and her path coincided with his, so that he encountered her in Tenth street. He walked home with her, asking after her health and talking commonplaces to escape conversation. He went in—there was no easy way to avoid it, had he desired. She set him a chair, and drew up the shades, and then took a seat near him.
"I've been at Aunt Martin's to-day," he said.
"Have you?" she asked with a sort of trepidation in her voice.
"Yes." Then after a pause he edged up to what he wished to say by adding: "I had a curious talk with Uncle Martin, who has got his head full of the greatest jumble of scientific terms which he can not remember, and nonsense about what he calls Christian Science. He says he learned it from Miss Bowyer, a Christian Science talker. Do you know her?"
"No; I have only heard of her from Mr. Martin, and I don't think I ought to judge her by what is reported of her teaching. Maybe it is not so bad. One doesn't like to be judged at second-hand," she said, looking at him with a quick glance.
"Especially when Uncle Martin is the reporter," he replied.
Meantime Phillida's eyes were inquiring whether he had heard anything about her present course of action.
"I saw Wilhelmina Schulenberg in Tompkins Square to-day," he said, still approaching the inevitable, sidewise.
"Did you?" she asked almost in a whisper. "Was she walking?"
"Yes. Why did you not tell me she was better?"