“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 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.