Red Peppers Patients | Page 3

filled by powerful shoulders, and the perfectly kept hands of the surgeon gave evidence, as such hands do, of their delicacy of touch, in the very way in which Burns closed the door behind him.
Gardner Coolidge was of a different type altogether. As tall as Burns, he looked taller because of his slender figure and the distinctive outlines of his careful dress. His face was dark and rather thin, showing sensitive lines about the eyes and mouth, and a tendency to melancholy in the eyes themselves, even when lighted by a smile, as now. He was manifestly the man of worldly experience, with fastidious tastes, and presumably one who did not accept the rest of mankind as comrades until proved and chosen.
"So it's my services you want?" questioned Burns. "If that's the case, then it's here you sit."
"Face to the light, of course," objected Coolidge with a grimace. "I wonder if you doctors know what a moral advantage as well as a physical one that gives you."
"Of course. The moral advantage is the one we need most. Anybody can see when a skin is jaundiced; but only by virtue of that moral standpoint can we detect the soul out of order. And that's the matter with you, Cooly."
"What!" Coolidge looked startled. "I knew you were a man who jumped to conclusions in the old days--"
"And acted on them, too," admitted Burns. "I should say I did. And got myself into many a scrape thereby, of course. Well, I jump to conclusions now, in just the same way, only perhaps with a bit more understanding of the ground I jump on. However, tell me your symptoms in orthodox style, please, then we'll have them out of the way."
Coolidge related them somewhat reluctantly because, as he went on, he was conscious that they did not appear to be of as great importance as this visit to a physician seemed to indicate he thought them. The most impressive was the fact that he was unable to get a thoroughly good night's sleep except when physically exhausted, which in his present manner of life he seldom was. When he had finished and looked around--he had been gazing out of the window--he found himself, as he had known he should, under the intent scrutiny of the eyes he was facing.
"What did the last man give you for this insomnia?" was the abrupt question.
"How do you know I have been to a succession of men?" demanded Coolidge with a touch of evident irritation.
"Because you come to me. We don't look up old friends in the profession until the strangers fail us," was the quick reply.
"More hasty conclusions. Still, I'll have to admit that I let our family physician look me over, and that he suggested my seeing a nerve man--Allbright. He has rather a name, I believe?"
"Sure thing. What did he recommend?"
"A long sea voyage. I took it--having nothing else to do--and slept a bit better while I was away. The minute I got back it was the old story."
"Nothing on your mind, I suppose?" suggested Burns.
"I supposed you'd ask me that stock question. Why shouldn't there be something on my mind? Is there anybody whose mind is free from a weight of some sort?" demanded Gardner Coolidge. His thin face flushed a little.
"Nobody," admitted Burns promptly. "The question is whether the weight on yours is one that's got to stay there or whether you may be rid of it. Would you care to tell me anything about it? I'm a pretty old friend, you know."
Coolidge was silent for a full minute, then he spoke with evident reluctance: "It won't do a particle of good to tell, but I suppose, if I consult you, you have a right to know the facts. My wife--has gone back to her father."
"On a visit?" Burns inquired.
Coolidge stared at him. "That's like you, Red," he said, irritation in his voice again. "What's the use of being brutal?"
"Has she been gone long enough for people to think it's anything more than a visit?"
"I suppose not. She's been gone two months. Her home is in California."
"Then she can be gone three without anybody's thinking trouble. By the end of that third month you can bring her home," said Burns comfortably. He leaned back in his swivel-chair, and stared hard at the ceiling.
Coolidge made an exclamation of displeasure and got to his feet. "If you don't care to take me seriously--" he began.
"I don't take any man seriously who I know cared as much for his wife when he married her as you did for Miss Carrington--and whose wife was as much in love with him as she was with you--when he comes to me and talks about her having gone on a visit to her father. Visits are good things; they make