evolved best
upon _you_. [_He hands back the letter case._] Shall I wait and take
back the case to Mr. Mason with the papers you wish him to have?

BLANCHE. Oh, no, I will send them; I mustn't keep you while I read them.
I'm always taking more of your time than I ought.

WARDEN. [_Speaks with sincerity, but without any suggestion of
love-making._] But never as much as I want to give you! Don't forget,
Mrs. Sterling, what you promised me at your wedding,--that your
husband's best man should be your best friend.

BLANCHE. And nobody knows what it means to a woman, even a happily
married woman like me--[_This is spoken with a slight effort, as if she
is persuading herself that she is a happily married woman._]--to have an
honest friend like you. It's those people who have failed that say there
is no such thing as a platonic friendship.

WARDEN. We'll prove them wrong.

BLANCHE. We will. Good-by, and thank you.

WARDEN. And thank _you_! [_Starting to go, he turns._] Shall I bring
that Russian pianist around to play for you some day next week?

BLANCHE. Do--I want some music.

WARDEN. Only let me know what day. [_He goes out Left._ BLANCHE _sits by
the table and opens the case. She looks first at a memoranda and reads
what is on the outside._] A business memoranda. Lists of bonds. [_She
opens and looks at the next paper only a second, and then closes it._]
This, Mr. Mason will understand better than I. [_She puts it back in the
pocket case. She finds a photograph in the case._] My picture!--[_She
looks for others, but finds none._]--and _only_ mine! Oh, father!...
[_She wipes away tears from her eyes so as to see the picture, which is
an old one._] Father, I returned _your_ love. [_She reads on the back of
photograph._] "Blanche, my darling daughter, at fourteen years of age!"
That's mine! that's my own! [_And she puts the picture away separately.
She takes up a small packet of very old love-letters tied with faded old
pink tape._] Old letters from mother; they must be her love-letters. She
shall have them,--they may soften her. [_She takes up a slip of paper
and reads on the outside._] This is something for Mason, too. [_She puts
it back in the case. She takes up a sealed envelope, blank._] Nothing on
it, and sealed. [_She looks at it a moment, thinking._] Father, did you
want this opened? If you didn't, why not have destroyed it? Ah! I
needn't be afraid; _you_ had nothing to hide from the world. [_Tearing
it open,