"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 vanity. "You are right, Madelene," said she. "Dory is cold."
"But I didn't say that," replied Madelene. "Most of us prefer people like those flabby sea creatures that are tossed aimlessly about by the waves and have no permanent shape or real purposes and desires, but take whatever their feeble tentacles can hold without effort." Del winced, and it was the highest tribute to Dr. Madelene's skill that the patient did not hate her and refuse further surgery. "We're used to that sort," continued she. "So when a really alive, vigorous, pushing, and resisting personality comes in contact with us, we say, 'How hard! How unfeeling!' The truth, of course, is that Ross is more like the flabby things—his environment dominates him, while Dory dominates his environment. But you like the Ross sort, and you're right to suit yourself. To suit yourself is the only way to avoid making a complete failure of life. Wait till Dory comes home. Then talk it out with him. Then—free yourself and marry Ross, who will have freed himself. It's quite simple. People are broad-minded about divorce nowadays. It never causes serious scandal, except among those who'd like to do the same, but don't dare."
It certainly was easy, and ought to have been attractive. Yet Del was not attracted. "One can't deal with love in such a cold, calculating fashion," thought she, by way of bolstering up her weakening confidence in the reality and depth of those sensations which had seemed so thrillingly romantic an hour before. "I've given you the impression that Ross and I have some—some understanding," said she. "But we haven't. For all I know, he may not care for me as I care for him."
"He probably doesn't," was Madelene's douche-like reply. "You attract him physically—which includes his feeling that you'd show off better than Theresa before the world for which he cares so much. But, after all, that's much the way you care for him, isn't it?"
Adelaide's bosom was swelling and falling agitatedly. Her eyes flashed; her reserve vanished. "I'm sure he'd love me!" cried she. "He'd give me what my whole soul, my whole body cry out for. Madelene, you don't understand! I am so starved, so out in the cold! I want to go in where it's warm—and—human!" The truth, the deep-down truth, was out at last; Adelaide had wrenched it from herself.
"And Dory will not give you that?" said Madelene, all gentleness and sympathy, and treading softly on this dangerous, delicate ground.
"He gives me nothing!" exclaimed Adelaide bitterly. "He is waiting for me to learn to love him. He ought to know that a woman has to be taught to love—at least the sort of woman I am. He treats me as if I were his equal, when he ought to see that I'm not; that I'm like a child, and have to be shown what's good for me, and made to take it."
"Then, perhaps, after all," said Madelene slowly, "you do care for Dory."