“My dear man, she’s not a private character. The lives that will be
written! Anita’s may be the classic, but it won’t be the only one.
Letters are bound to be printed—every scrap she ever wrote. Nobody can
stop it. It’s only a question of time. The public has its rights.”
“To what?” He turned savagely. “You’ve had her books. She’s given
enough. Will you leave her nothing private, nothing sacred?”
“But, Kent, can’t you see——” Anita had an air of pushing Miss Howe and
Mr. Flood from her road—“aren’t you artist enough to see——? A writer, a
woman like Madala, she has no private life. She lives to write. She
lives what she writes. She _is_ what she writes. She gives her soul to
the world. She leaves her riddle to be read. Don’t you see? to be read.
That’s what I’m doing. That’s what I’m going to do—read her—for the rest
of you, for the public. Because—because they care, because we all care.
It’s done in all honour. It’s a tribute. And for what I am going to do,
such a letter is the key.”
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.
“Jenny’s views can hardly concern us.”
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.
“Look here, Anita!” he began.
“I’m looking,” she said.