He could bear it no longer.
'Yes,' he answered, brusquely, 'I suppose they are.'
'You mean that you have preserved letters which, as often as you open that drawer, remind you of someone else?—that you purposely keep them so near your hand?'
'Beatrice, I had no right to destroy them.'
'No right!' Her eyes flashed, and her tongue trembled with its scorn. 'You mean you had no wish.'
'If I had no right, I could scarcely have the wish.'
Wilfrid was amazed at his own contemptible quibbling, but in truth he was not equal to the occasion. He could not defend himself in choice phrases; in a sort of desperate carelessness he flung out the first retort that offered itself. He was on the point of throwing over everything, of declaring that all must be at an end between them; yet courage failed for that. Nor courage only; the woman before him was very grand in her indignation, her pale face was surpassingly beautiful. The past faded in comparison with her; in his heart he doubted of its power.
Beatrice was gazing at him in resentful wonder.
'Why have you done this?' she asked. 'Why did you come to me and speak those words? What necessity was there to pretend what you did not feel?'
He met her eyes.