Ruth. I call it my "Harold Notebook." I've put down bits of his letters that you read me, the lovely bits that are too beautiful to forget. Do you mind?
Anne. You silly child!
Ruth. Here, you may see it.... That's from the second letter he wrote you from Rio Janeiro. I just couldn't get over that letter. You know I made you read it to me three times. It was so—so delicate. I remembered this passage—see. "A young girl seems to me as exquisite and frail as a flower, and I feel myself a vandal in desiring to pluck and possess one. Yet, Anne, your face is always before me, and I know now what I was too stupid to realize before, that it was you and you only, who made life bearable for me last winter when I was a stranger and alone." Oh, Anne—[Sighing rapturously.] that's the sort of love letters I've dreamed of getting. I don't suppose I ever shall.
Anne. [still looking over the notebook with her odd smile]. Have you shown this to any one?
Ruth. Only to Caroline—in confidence. [Pauses to see how Anne will take it.] But really, Anne, every one knows about Harold. You've told Madge and Eleanor, and I'm sure they've told the others. They don't say anything to us, but they do to Caroline and she tells me. [Watching Anne's face.] You're not angry, are you, Anne?
Anne. Yes, rather. [Then eagerly.] What do they say?
Ruth. Oh, all sorts of things. Some of them horrid, of course! You can't blame them for being jealous. Here you are having just the sort of experience that any one of them would give their eye teeth to have. I'd be jealous if you weren't my sister. As it is, I seem to get some of the glory myself.
Anne [pleads, but disparaging]. But every girl has this experience sooner or later.
Ruth. Oh, not in this way. Everything that Harold does is beautiful, ideal. Jane Fenwick showed me some of Bob's letters. They were so dull, so prosaic! All about his salary and the corn crop. I was disgusted with them. So was she, I think, when she saw Harold's letters.
Anne. Oh, you showed them to Jane, too?