“That letter—you can’t print it. You’ve no right. It’s not your property.”
She waved it aside.
“I shall be literary executor. She promised. It’s mine if it’s anyone’s. It’s no good, Kent, it goes into the book. Nothing can alter that. Nothing——”
Then she stopped dead. There was that same odd look in her eye as there had been when she watched us—that flicker of curiosity, and behind it the same gleam of inexplicable anger.
“Look here——” she said very deliberately—“look you here—what has it got to do with you?”
It was not the words, it was the tone. It was shameless. It was as if she had cried aloud her hateful questions—‘Did you love her?’ ‘What was there between you?’ ‘I want to know it all. It tears me not to know.’ But what she said to him, and before he could answer, was—
“If, of course—anyone—had any right—could prove any right——” She broke off, watching him closely. But he said nothing. “If,” she said, and poked with her finger, “if that letter—if you recognized it—if that were the rough draft of a letter that had been sent——”
He stared down at her. His face was bleak.
“You’ll get no copy from me, Anita!”
“Oh!” She caught her breath, fierce and wicked as a cat with a bird, yet shrinking as a cat does, supple, ears flat. “I only meant—I said right. If anyone—if you could satisfy me—if you have any right——”