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.