Red Peppers Patients | Page 4

people appreciate each other."
"You don't--or won't--understand." Coolidge evidently strove hard to keep himself quiet. "We have come to a definite understanding that we can't--get on together. She's not coming back. And I don't want her to."
Burns lowered his gaze from the ceiling to his friend's face, and the glance he now gave him was piercing. "Say that last again," he demanded.
"I have some pride," replied the other haughtily, but his eyes would not meet Burns's.
"So I see. Pride is a good thing. So is love. Tell me you don't love her and I'll--No, don't tell me that. I don't want to hear you perjure yourself. And I shouldn't believe you. You may as well own up"--his voice was gentle now--"that you're suffering--and not only with hurt pride." There was silence for a little. Then Burns began again, in a very low and quiet tone: "Have you anything against her, Cooly?"
The man before him, who was still standing, turned upon him. "How can you ask me such a question?" he said fiercely.
"It's a question that has to be asked, just to get it out of the way. Has she anything against you?"
"For heaven's sake--no! You know us both."
"I thought I did. Diagnosis, you know, is a series of eliminations. And now I can eliminate pretty nearly everything from this case except a certain phrase you used a few minutes ago. I'm inclined to think it's the cause of the trouble." Coolidge looked his inquiry. "'Having nothing else to do.'"
Coolidge shook his head. "You're mistaken there. I have plenty to do."
"But nothing you couldn't be spared from--unless things have changed since the days when we all envied you. You're still writing your name on the backs of dividend drafts, I suppose?"
"Red, you are something of a brute," said Coolidge, biting his lip. But he had taken the chair again.
"I know," admitted Red Pepper Burns. "I don't really mean to be, but the only way I can find out the things I need to know is to ask straight questions. I never could stand circumlocution. If you want that, Cooly; if you want what are called 'tactful' methods, you'll have to go to some other man. What I mean by asking you that one is to prove to you that though you may have something to do, you have no job to work at. As it happens you haven't even what most other rich men have, the trouble of looking after your income--and as long as your father lives you won't have it. I understand that; he won't let you. But there's a man with a job--your father. And he likes it so well he won't share it with you. It isn't the money he values, it's the job. And collecting books or curios or coins can never be made to take the place of good, downright hard work."
"That may be all true," acknowledged Coolidge, "but it has nothing to do with my present trouble. My leisure was not what--" He paused, as if he could not bear to discuss the subject of his marital unhappiness.
The telephone bell in the outer office rang sharply. An instant later Miss Mathewson knocked, and gave a message to Burns. He read it, nodded, said "Right away," and turned back to his friend.
"I have to leave you for a bit," he said. "Come in and meet my wife and one of the kiddies. The other's away just now. I'll be back in time for dinner. Meanwhile, we'll let the finish of this talk wait over for an hour or two. I want to think about it."
He exchanged his white linen office-jacket for a street coat, splashing about with soap and water just out of sight for a little while before he did so, and reappeared looking as if he had washed away the fatigue of his afternoon's work with the physical process. He led Gardner Coolidge out of the offices into a wide separating hall, and the moment the door closed behind him the visitor felt as if he had entered a different world.
Could this part of the house, he thought, as Burns ushered him into the living room on the other side of the hall and left him there while he went to seek his wife, possibly be contained within the old brick walls of the exterior? He had not dreamed of finding such refinement of beauty and charm in connection with the office of the village doctor. In half a dozen glances to right and left Gardner Coolidge, experienced in appraising the belongings of the rich and travelled of superior taste and breeding, admitted to himself that the genius of the place must be such a woman as he would not have imagined Redfield Pepper Burns able to marry.
He had not long to wait for