“But he wasn’t a connoisseur in tapestries, Minnie darling.”

“No, but he was in pigs, the dear vulgarian.”

“True vulgarity,” said one of the men, “vulgarity in the best sense, I mean, should betray no consciousness of its own existence.  Only thus can it be really great.”

“Oh, Minnie’s vulgarity is just artificial, assumed because she found it worked so well.”

“Surely you accord her some natural talent along those lines.”

“I suspect her secret mind is refined.”

“Oh, that’s not fair.  Vulgar is as vulgar does.”

Adelaide stood up, pushing back her chair.  She found them utterly intolerable.  Besides, as they talked she had suddenly seen clearly that she must herself speak to Vincent’s doctor without an instant’s delay.  “I have to telephone, Minnie,” she said, and swept out of the room.  She never returned.

“Not one of the perfect lady’s golden days, I should say,” said one of the men, raising his eyebrows.  “I wonder what’s gone wrong?”

“Can Vincent have been straying from the straight and narrow?”

“Something wrong.  I could tell by her looks.”

“Ah, my dear, I’m afraid her looks is what’s wrong.”

Adelaide meantime was in her motor on her way to the doctor’s office.  He had given up his sacred lunch-hour in response to her imperious demand and to his own intense pity for her sorrow.

He did not know her, but he had had her pointed out to him, and though he recognized the unreason of such an attitude, he was aware that her great beauty dramatized her suffering, so that his pity for her was uncommonly alive.

He was a young man, with a finely cut face and a blond complexion.  His pity was visible, quivering a little under his mask of impassivity.  Adelaide’s first thought on seeing him was, “Good Heavens! another man to be emotionally calmed before I can get at the truth!” She had to be tactful, to let him see that she was not going to make a scene.  She knew that he felt it himself, but she was not grateful to him.  What business had he to feel it?  His feeling was an added burden, and she felt that she had enough to carry.

He did not make the mistake, however, of expressing his sympathy verbally.  His answers were as cold and clear as she could wish.  She questioned him on the chances of an operation.  He could not reduce his judgment to a mathematical one; he was inclined to advocate an operation on psychological grounds, he said.

“It keeps up the patient’s courage to know something is being done.”  He added, “That will be your work, Mrs. Farron, to keep his courage up.”

Most women like to know they had their part to play, but Adelaide shook her head quickly.

“I would so much rather go through it myself!” she cried.

“Naturally, naturally,” he agreed, without getting the full passion of her cry.

She stood up.