ommonplaces of life among those people--and they're in all
classes--who look for emotions and not for opportunities to be useful."

Del smiled, and Madelene hailed the returning sense of humor as an
encouraging sign.

"The one difficult factor is Theresa," said Madelene, pushing on with the
prescription. "She--I judge from what I've heard--she's what's commonly
called a 'poor excuse for a woman.' We all know that type. You may be
sure her vanity would soon find ways of consoling her. Ninety-nine times
out of a hundred where one holds on after the other has let go the reason
is vanity, wounded vanity--where it isn't the material consideration that
explains why there are so many abandoned wives and so few abandoned
husbands. Theresa doesn't really care for her husband; love that isn't
mutual isn't love. So she'd come up smiling for a second husband."

"She's certainly vain," said Del. "Losing him would all but kill her."

"Not if it's done tactfully," replied Madelene. "Ross'll no doubt be glad
to sacrifice his own vanity and so arrange matters that she'll be able to
say and feel that she got rid of him, not he of her. Of course that means
a large sacrifice of his vanity--and of yours, too. But neither of you
will mind that."

Adelaide looked uncomfortable; Madelene took advantage of her abstraction
to smile at the confession hinted in that look.

"As for Dory--"

At that name Del colored and hung her head.

"As for Dory," repeated Madelene, not losing the chance to emphasize the
effect, "he's no doubt fond of you. But no matter what he--or you--may
imagine, his fondness cannot be deeper than that of a man for a woman
between whom and him there isn't the perfect love that makes one of two."

"I don't understand his caring for me," cried Del. "I can't believe he
does." This in the hope of being contradicted.

But Madelene simply said: "Perhaps he'd not feel toward you as he seems
to think he does if he hadn't known you before you went East and got fond
of the sort of thing that attracts you in Ross Whitney. Anyhow, Dory's
the kind of man to be less unhappy over losing you than over keeping you
when you didn't want to stay. You may be like his eyes to him, but you
know if that sort of man loses his sight he puts seeing out of the
calculation and goes on just the same. Dory Hargrave is a _man_; and a
real man is bigger than any love affair, however big."

Del was trying to hide the deep and smarting wound to her v