Crucial Instances Part 11

_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, and here's the other--the one I--the one I didn't answer--for a long time. Do you remember?

_Ventnor (with emotion)_. Do I remember? I wrote it the morning after we heard _Isolde_--

_Mrs. Dale (disappointed)_. No--no. _That_ wasn't the one I didn't answer! Here--this is the one I mean.

_Ventnor (takes it curiously)_. Ah--h'm--this is very like unrolling a mummy--_(he glances at her)_--with a live grain of wheat in it, perhaps?--Oh, by Jove!

_Mrs. Dale_. What?

_Ventnor_. Why, this is the one I made a sonnet out of afterward! By Jove, I'd forgotten where that idea came from. You may know the lines perhaps? They're in the fourth volume of my Complete Edition--It's the thing beginning

_Love came to me with unrelenting eyes--_

one of my best, I rather fancy. Of course, here it's very crudely put--the values aren't brought out--ah! this touch is good though--very good. H'm, I daresay there might be other material. _(He glances toward the cabinet.)_

_Mrs. Dale (drily)_. The live grain of wheat, as you said!

_Ventnor_. Ah, well--my first harvest was sown on rocky ground--_now_ I plant for the fowls of the air. _(Rising and walking toward the cabinet.)_ When can I come and carry off all this rubbish?

_Mrs. Dale_. Carry it off?

_Ventnor (embarra.s.sed)_. My dear lady, surely between you and me explicitness is a burden. You must see that these letters of ours can't be left to take their chance like an ordinary correspondence--you said yourself we were public property.

_Mrs. Dale_. To take their chance? Do you suppose that, in my keeping, your letters take any chances? _(Suddenly.)_ Do mine--in yours?

_Ventnor (still more embarra.s.sed)_. Helen--! _(He takes a turn through the room.)_ You force me to remind you that you and I are differently situated--that in a moment of madness I sacrificed the only right you ever gave me--the right to love you better than any other woman in the world. _(A pause. She says nothing and he continues, with increasing difficulty--)_ You asked me just now why I carried your letters about with me--kept them, literally, in my own hands. Well, suppose it's to be sure of their not falling into some one else's?

_Mrs. Dale_. Oh!

_Ventnor (throws himself into a chair)_. For G.o.d's sake don't pity me!

_Mrs. Dale (after a long pause)_. Am I dull--or are you trying to say that you want to give me back my letters?

_Ventnor (starting up)_. I? Give you back--? G.o.d forbid! Your letters?

Not for the world! The only thing I have left! But you can't dream that in _my_ hands--

_Mrs. Dale (suddenly)_. You want yours, then?

_Ventnor (repressing his eagerness)_. My dear friend, if I'd ever dreamed that you'd kept them--?

_Mrs. Dale (accusingly)_. You _do_ want them. _(A pause. He makes a deprecatory gesture.)_ Why should they be less safe with me than mine with you? _I_ never forfeited the right to keep them.

_Ventnor (after another pause)_. It's compensation enough, almost, to have you reproach me! _(He moves nearer to her, but she makes no response.)_ You forget that I've forfeited _all_ my rights--even that of letting you keep my letters.

_Mrs. Dale_. You _do_ want them! _(She rises, throws all the letters into the cabinet, locks the door and puts the key in her pocket.)_ There's my answer.

_Ventnor_. Helen--!

_Mrs. Dale_. Ah, I paid dearly enough for the right to keep them, and I mean to! _(She turns to him pa.s.sionately.)_ Have you ever asked yourself how I paid for it? With what months and years of solitude, what indifference to flattery, what resistance to affection?--Oh, don't smile because I said affection, and not love. Affection's a warm cloak in cold weather; and I _have_ been cold; and I shall keep on growing colder!

Don't talk to me about living in the hearts of my readers! We both know what kind of a domicile that is. Why, before long I shall become a cla.s.sic!

Bound in sets and kept on the top book-shelf--brr, doesn't that sound freezing? I foresee the day when I shall be as lonely as an Etruscan museum! _(She breaks into a laugh.)_ That's what I've paid for the right to keep your letters. _(She holds out her hand.)_ And now give me mine.

_Ventnor_. Yours?

_Mrs. Dale (haughtily)_. Yes; I claim them.

_Ventnor (in the same tone)_. On what ground?

_Mrs. Dale_. Hear the man!--Because I wrote them, of course.

_Ventnor_. But it seems to me that--under your inspiration, I admit--I also wrote mine.

_Mrs. Dale_. Oh, I don't dispute their authenticity--it's yours I deny!

_Ventnor_. Mine?

_Mrs. Dale_. You voluntarily ceased to be the man who wrote me those letters--you've admitted as much. You traded paper for flesh and blood. I don't dispute your wisdom--only you must hold to your bargain! The letters are all mine.

_Ventnor (groping between two tones)_. Your arguments are as convincing as ever. _(He hazards a faint laugh.)_ You're a marvellous dialectician--but, if we're going to settle the matter in the spirit of an arbitration treaty, why, there are accepted conventions in such cases. It's an odious way to put it, but since you won't help me, one of them is--

_Mrs. Dale_. One of them is--?

_Ventnor_. That it is usual--that technically, I mean, the letter--belongs to its writer--

_Mrs. Dale (after a pause)_. Such letters as _these_?

_Ventnor_. Such letters especially--

_Mrs. Dale_. But you couldn't have written them if I hadn't--been willing to read them. Surely there's more of myself in them than of you.

_Ventnor_. Surely there's nothing in which a man puts more of himself than in his love-letters!

_Mrs. Dale (with emotion)_. But a woman's love-letters are like her child.

They belong to her more than to anybody else--

_Ventnor_. And a man's?

_Mrs. Dale (with sudden violence)_. Are all he risks!--There, take them. _(She flings the key of the cabinet at his feet and sinks into a chair.)_

_Ventnor (starts as though to pick up the key; then approaches and bends over her)_. Helen--oh, Helen!

_Mrs. Dale (she yields her hands to him, murmuring:)_ Paul!

_(Suddenly she straightens herself and draws back illuminated.)_ What a fool I am! I see it all now. You want them for your memoirs!

_Ventnor (disconcerted)_. Helen--

_Mrs. Dale (agitated)_. Come, come--the rule is to unmask when the signal's given! You want them for your memoirs.

_Ventnor (with a forced laugh)_. What makes you think so?