"And I shan't give it to you."
He suddenly looked round the room. There was nobody there; the waitress was away; the two of them were quite alone. He rose out of his chair and with a second cautious glance round him went over to her and seized her by the neck with one hand while with the other he felt in her corsage for the letter. He knew that was where she would have put it. The very surprise of his movement made it successful. In another moment he had the letter in his hand. He stood above her, grim and angry, flaunting the letter high above her head. She made an upward spring for his hand, and he, startled by her quick retaliation, crumpled the letter into a heap and flung it into the fire at the side of the room. Then they both stared at each other in silence.
"So it's come to that," she said, her face very white. She placed her hand to her breast and said: "By the way, you've hurt me."
He replied: "I'm sorry if I hurt you. I didn't intend to. I simply wanted to get the letter, that's all."
"All right," she answered. "I'll excuse you for hurting me."
Then the waitress entered with the sweet and their conversation was abruptly interrupted.
After dinner he went back into the lounge and took up an illustrated paper. Somehow, he did not feel inclined to try to rewrite the letter to Clare. And in any case, he could not have remembered more than bits of it; it would have to be a fresh letter if he wrote at all.
Helen came downstairs to him with hat and coat on ready for outdoors.
"Good-bye," she said, "I'm going."
He said: "Hadn't I better take you down to the place? I don't mind a bit of a walk, you know."