“Are you sure I’m not?” he said.
She did not answer this directly.
“You’ve got to be gentle,” she said.
Peter’s fingers closed on the letter, hesitated, and then tore the sheets in half. He tore them across yet again. “Well, he shan’t see the letter,” he said. “It was written to me and I’ve destroyed it. But if, when I tell him, he becomes melodramatic how can I help being what you call ruthless? He’s so vain: you don’t know how vain he is. This will be a brutal outrage, an attempted assassination of his vanity. But it won’t injure it. The dastardly blow will glance aside, and he’ll put an extra bodyguard round his vanity for the future. He’s a ridiculous person, Silvia,” said Peter in a loud, firm voice.
Silvia gave a sigh.
“Ah, that’s better,” she said, “for you’ve torn the letter up, anyhow, and when you said he was ridiculous, you said it, my dear, as if you were justifying yourself rather than accusing him. Oh, you said it firmly and loudly, but—will you mind if I say this too?—you didn’t say it so spitefully. Now, let’s be practical. You always used to be practical, Peter. When are you going to tell him?”
Peter looked at his watch.
“That means that if I say that I haven’t made up my mind,” he said, “you will certainly let me know that there is plenty of time to tell him before dinner. You want me to tell him now: that’s where we are. You call me practical: who was ever so practical as you, when it comes to the point?”
She did not challenge that, but rather proceeded to justify Peter’s opinion for him.
“My dear, you can put off pleasant things if you like,” she said, “because you enjoy the anticipation of them. But where—where is the use of putting off unpleasant things? That only lengthens a beastly anticipation.”