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 passionately.) 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 classic! 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.