"What is it?"
"That I have been receiving anonymous letters for some time."
"Anonymous letters? What are the contents?"
"Oh, you can guess."
"I see." It was clear to George that it could only be something about the actress. Heinrich had returned in greater anguish than ever from the foreign town, where he had seen his mistress act the part of a depraved creature in a new play, with a truth and realism which he found positively intolerable. George knew that he and she had since then been exchanging letters full of tenderness and scorn, full of anger and forgiveness, full of broken anguish and laboured confidence.
"The delightful messages," explained Heinrich, "have been coming along every morning for eight days. Not very pleasant, I can assure you."
"Good gracious, what do they matter to you? You know yourself anonymous letters never contain the truth."
"On the contrary, my dear George, they always do, but letters like that always contain a kind of higher truth, the great truth of possibilities. Men haven't usually got sufficient imagination to create things out of nothing."
"That is a charming way of looking at things. Where should we all get to, then? It makes things a bit too easy for libellers of all kinds."
"Why do you say libellers? I regard it as highly improbable that there are any libels contained in the anonymous letters which I have been receiving. No doubt exaggerations, embellishments, inaccuracies...."