"I'm sorry it has turned out as it has," he said, after a pause. "You don't understand--"
He lifted his shoulders ever so slightly, a gesture of defeat.
"Please--" he said, but something in my eyes stopped him. His face grew very hard.
"I think," he said, "that you are making a mountain out of a molehill. A range of mountains. Because I wrote a few verses that struck your fancy: because you did not like the actual, flesh-and-blood author: because I preferred to hide behind my nom-de-plume, and because you choose to honor Richard Warren with your friendly regard--" he shrugged again, "and because, perhaps foolishly, I want to be liked for what I am, and not for what I set down on paper--I preferred to play what I fancied was a very charming little game--and now you accuse me of having cheated."
"I have nothing of the sort," I answered. "But did it not occur to you, during your 'little game' that you were playing with an opponent wholly innocent of the fact that she was playing blindfolded, and that the cards were--stacked?"
We both heard the car drive up to the front door.
"Well," he said, "my cards are on the table now, Mavis."
"The car is waiting," I said. "You had best go. As far as I am concerned, the game is over. Richard Warren, as I knew him, never existed,--only a very clever young doctor who amused himself at my expense. Here," I said, turning to the open drawer, "are your letters. Take them, please. They would make good reading of the type which is called 'light fiction.'"
"Careful," said Bill, under his breath, and his hand shot out and caught my arm, "careful, Mavis! You are going just a little too far."
"And you--?" I asked furiously, "and--_you_?"
"I beg your pardon," he said, and the clear flame of anger leaped into the steel-blue eyes.
The door closed behind him. I stood for a moment, quite still, rubbing the bruised place on my arm which his fingers had made.
Richard Warren's letters lay on the floor. I caught them up, hurried to the living room. There was a burning log on the hearth, and under Bill's hostile eyes, as he gathered up his hat and gloves, I put the sheets in the fire.
They writhed, shot high in flame, and blackening, fell to ashes. Something in me cried out at that--they had been so dear, so dear.