“Any notion of how to go about the search?”
“No very clear idea, as yet. But now that I have money and leisure—can go where I please and stay as long as I please—well, to begin with, I had thought of making a round of the different towns and mining-camps. Of course, I’m not at all certain that he is in Colorado. The Black Hills rush was the big excitement when he dis—when he left home.”
“I see,” Bromley nodded; and, forbearing to add any word either of curious questioning or of discouragement: “Have you finished your coffee?”
“The coffee, yes,” Philip assented hesitantly. “But there is a thing we’ve both been dodging, and we may as well have it out here and now. What did you think of me last night, Harry?”
Bromley smiled. “I thought you were completely human; a fact I have at times been somewhat inclined to doubt.”
Philip shook his head in reproachful deprecation.
“Do you make a joke out of everything?” he asked.
“Oh, no. But in this transitory scheme which we call Life, spelling it with a capital letter, I try to give things their relative value—that’s all.”
Again Philip shook his head.
“Can a man touch pitch and not be defiled? I wasn’t human, Harry; for the time being I was just a brute beast.”