It was not the time to speak,—­she knew that well enough.  Besides, though she was not the subject of his resentment, she did not care to incur any more of the results of it than could be helped.  She let Burns drop her at a corner near the shopping district without asking him to take her to the precise place she meant to visit first, and left him without making any request that he return for her,—­a courtesy he was usually eager to insist upon, even though it took him out of his way.

At night, when he returned, she met him with the hope that he would be able to spend the evening with her,—­a thing which had not happened for a week.  Her arms were about his neck as she put the question, and he looked down into her face with again a slight softening of his austere expression.  She had seen at the first glance that he was not only still unhappy, he was suffering profound fatigue.

“No, I’ve got to go back to that infernal case.”  It was the first time he had disclosed even a hint as to what was the matter.

“The one where I stopped with you this morning?”

“Yes.  Each time I go I vow I’ll not go again.  To-night, if I find things as they were two hours ago, I’ll discharge myself, and that will end it.”

“Red, you’re just as tired and worn as you can be.  Come in to the big couch, and let me make you comfortable, until dinner.  You’ll eat the better for it—­and you need it.”

He yielded, reluctantly,—­he who was always so willing to submit to her ministrations.  But he threw himself upon the couch with a long sigh, and let her arrange the pillows under his head.  She sat down beside him.

“Can’t you tell me something about it, dear?” she suggested.  “Nothing I ought not to know, of course, but the thing which makes you so miserable.  It can’t be because the case is going wrong,—­that wouldn’t affect you just as this is doing.”

“You’ve seen it, I suppose.  I thought I’d kept in, before you.”  Burns shut his eyes, his brows frowning.

She could have smiled, but did not.  “You have—­only of course I have seen that something was wearing you—­keeping you on a tension.  You’ve not been quite yourself for several days.”

“I am myself.  I’m the real fellow—­only you haven’t known him before.  The other is just—­the devil disguised in a goodly garment, one that doesn’t belong to him.”

“Oh, no!”

“No question of it.  I’m so swearing mad this minute I could kill somebody,—­in other words, that foul fiend of a James Van Horn—­smooth-tongued hypocrite that he is!”

“Has he injured you?”

“Injured me?  Knifed me in the back, every chance he got.  Always has—­but he never had such a chance as he has now.  And plays the part of an angel of light in that house—­fools them all.  I’m the ill-tempered incompetent, he’s the forbearing wise man.  The case is mine, but he’s played the game till they all have more confidence in him than they have in me.  And he’s got all the cards in his hand!”