She spoke softly, sweetly, persuasively. She wooed him to agree with her. She was extraordinarily eager for his approval. And the approval of the others she did win. They were all murmuring agreement.
His eyes strayed over them, undecidedly, seeking—not help. I do not know what he sought, but his eyes found mine.
“_You_——” he said to me—“would you want your letter——?”
Anita’s voice thrust in sharply. In the instant the pleading, the beauty, the woman, was gone from it. It was cold and shrill.
But he did not listen to her. He had drawn some answer from me that satisfied him. He got up.
“Oh,” I cried beneath my breath, and I think I touched his arm—“you won’t let her?”
He shook his head. Then he went across to where Anita stood, her eyes on him, on me, while she listened to Miss Howe whispering at her shoulder.
He checked a moment, puzzled. Then he went on—
“That letter—you can’t print it. You’ve no right. It’s not your property.”
“I shall be literary executor. She promised. It’s mine if it’s anyone’s. It’s no good, Kent, it goes into the book. Nothing can alter that. Nothing——”
Then she stopped dead. There was that same odd look in her eye as there had been when she watched us—that flicker of curiosity, and behind it the same gleam of inexplicable anger.
“Look here——” she said very deliberately—“look _you_ here—what has it got to do with you?”
It was not the words, it was the tone. It was shameless. It was as if she had cried aloud her hateful questions—‘Did you love her?’ ‘What was there between you?’ ‘I want to know it all. It tears me not to know.’ But what she said to him, and before he could answer, was—
“If, of course—anyone—had any right—could prove any right——” She broke off, watching him closely. But he said nothing. “If,” she said, and poked with her finger, “if that letter—if you recognized it—if that were the rough draft of a letter that had been sent——”
He stared down at her. His face was bleak.
“Oh!” She caught her breath, fierce and wicked as a cat with a bird, yet shrinking as a cat does, supple, ears flat. “I only meant—I said _right_. If anyone—if you could satisfy me—if you have any right——”
“Oh well, then!” She shrugged her shoulders.
“But,” he held stubbornly to his purpose, “whoever has a right to it—you can’t print that letter.”