Mrs. Dale. What does it matter, now that we’re both undeceived? I played a losing game, that’s all.
Ventnor. Why losing—since all the letters are yours?
Mrs. Dale. The letters? (Slowly.) I’d forgotten the letters—
Ventnor (exultant). Ah, I knew you’d end by telling me the truth!
Mrs. Dale. The truth? Where is the truth? (Half to herself.) I thought I was lying when I began—but the lies turned into truth as I uttered them! (She looks at Ventnor.) I did want your letters for my memoirs—I did think I’d kept them for that purpose—and I wanted to get mine back for the same reason—but now (she puts out her hand and picks up some of her letters, which are lying scattered on the table near her)—how fresh they seem, and how they take me back to the time when we lived instead of writing about life!
Ventnor (smiling). The time when we didn’t prepare our impromptu effects beforehand and copyright our remarks about the weather!
Mrs. Dale. Or keep our epigrams in cold storage and our adjectives under lock and key!
Ventnor. When our emotions weren’t worth ten cents a word, and a signature wasn’t an autograph. Ah, Helen, after all, there’s nothing like the exhilaration of spending one’s capital!
Mrs. Dale. Of wasting it, you mean. (She points to the letters.) Do you suppose we could have written a word of these if we’d known we were putting our dreams out at interest? (She sits musing, with her eyes on the fire, and he watches her in silence.) Paul, do you remember the deserted garden we sometimes used to walk in?
Ventnor. The old garden with the high wall at the end of the village street? The garden with the ruined box-borders and the broken-down arbor? Why, I remember every weed in the paths and every patch of moss on the walls!