Adelaide was annoyed by Madelene's lack of emotion. She had thought her sister-in-law would be stirred by a recital so romantic, so dark with the menace of tragedy. Instead, the doctor was acting as if she were dealing with mere measles. Adelaide, unconsciously, of course--we are never conscious of the strong admixture of vanity in our "great" emotions--was piqued into explaining. "We can never be anything to each other. There's Dory; then there's Theresa. And I'd suffer anything rather than bring shame and pain on others." Madelene smiled--somehow not irritatingly--an appeal to Del's sense of proportion. "Suffer," repeated she. "That's a good strong word for a woman to use who has health and youth and beauty, and material comfort--and a mind capable of an infinite variety of interests." Adelaide's tragic look was slipping from her. "Don't take too gloomy a view," continued the physician. "Disease and death and one other thing are the only really serious ills. In this case of yours everything will come round quite smooth, if you don't get hysterical and if Ross Whitney is really in earnest and not"--Madelene's tone grew even more deliberate--"not merely getting up a theatrical romance along the lines of the 'high-life' novels you idle people set such store by." She saw, in Del's wincing, that the shot had landed. "No," she went on, "your case is one of the commonplaces 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.