(Mrs. Thorne puts the opera cape over her friend’s shoulders.)
Mrs. Fayth (abruptly). Helen, I was thinking to-day about Cleo. I don’t often.
Mrs. Thorne (pityingly). Poor girl! I do, very often. She must have led a cruel life with her husband. And she was so young when he died! She really hated him—I think as much after he was dead as when he was alive.
Mrs. Fayth. She did not hate yours.
Mrs. Thorne (gravely). She was a patient. I have nothing to say.
Mrs. Fayth. But of course she hardly made a secret of it, that she loved the Doctor—half wrongly, half rightly.
Mrs. Thorne. Like the woman she was—half fiend, half angel—
Mrs. Fayth (interrupting). There are people who still talk about her; they are equally divided whether she died of love or morphine. It is said she had the opium habit. It is three years ago to-day that she killed herself.
Mrs. Thorne. I had forgotten.... Poor Cleo!
Mrs. Fayth. I’ve been thinking about her all day—I don’t know why. She never liked me very well—perhaps because I didn’t love the Doctor; and so he could do so much more for me. You know how those things go.... And you never gave her the satisfaction of one hour’s jealousy?