Dolph plunged his fists into his pockets.
"Hang it all, Olive! Do be concrete," he bade her.
"I will, if I can," she said fearlessly. "It's only that the things themselves aren't too concrete."
"No." Dolph spoke incisively. "I should say they aren't. Olive look here. Don't get your values muddled, at this stage of the game."
Despite their friendship, she looked up at him haughtily.
"What do you mean, Dolph?"
For a minute, he stared down at her, smiling slightly and with a look in his eyes that nullified the frank brutality of his next words.
"Don't get mawkish over Brenton, Olive, just because he is a pitiful weakling who, in spite of all his good intentions, has made a consistent mess of everything he's tried to do. Because a man is weak, he isn't necessarily more lovable. Because he has an incurable disease, he isn't, of necessity, any more a subject for idolatry. No; I don't mean that to lap over on to Opdyke, either. If ever a man was healthy, Opdyke is that man. But Brenton isn't. His logic and his conscience both are full of bacteria, bad little bacteria that swim around and mess things. He may pull out of it, of course, and make something in the end. Then, you can set him up on a pedestal and stick flowers in his fair hair. For the present, though, do keep sane about him, and deplore him, not admire."
"Aren't you a little hard on him, Dolph?" Olive asked steadily, although her cheeks were burning with the truth of his implied accusal.
"No; I'm not."