"I calc'late she was," said Malcolm Lightener, "when you come to think of it…. Too bad all cranks can't put the backbone they use in flub dub to some decent use. I sort of admire 'em."
"Father!" expostulated Mrs. Lightener.
"You've got to. They back their game to the limit…. This little girl did…. Tough on Bonbright, though."
Hilda walked to the door; there she stopped, and said over her shoulder: "Tell you what I think. I think she's mighty hard in love with him—and doesn't know it."
"Rats!" said her father, elegantly.
At that moment Bonbright was writing a letter to his wife. It was a difficult letter, which he had started many times, but had been unable to begin as it should be begun…. He did not want to hurt her; he did not want her to misunderstand; so he had to be very clear, and write very carefully what was in his heart. It was a sore heart, but, strangely, there was no bitterness in it toward Ruth. He found that strange himself, and marveled at it. He did not want to betray his misery to her—for that would hurt her, he knew. He did not want to accuse. All he wanted to do was to do what he could to set matters right for her. For him matters could never be set right again. It was the end…. The way of its coming had been a shock, but that the end had come was not such a shock. He perceived now that he had been gradually preparing himself for it. He saw that the life they had been living could have ended in nothing but a crash of happiness…. He admitted now that he had been afraid of it almost since the beginning….
"My Dear Ruth," he wrote. Then he stopped again, unable to find a beginning.
"I am writing because that will be easier for both of us," he wrote—and then scratched it out, for it seemed to strike a personal note. He did not want to be personal, to allow any emotion to creep in.
"It is necessary to make some arrangements," he began once more. That was better. Then, "I know you will not have gone away yet." That meant away with Dulac, and she would so understand it. "I hope you will consent to stay in the apartment. Everything there, of course, is yours. It is not necessary for us to discuss money. I will attend to that carefully. In this state a husband must be absent from his wife for a year before she can be released from him. I ask you to be patient for that time." That was all of it. There was nothing more to say. He read it, and it sounded bald, cold, but he could not better it.
At the end he wrote, "Yours sincerely," scratched it out, and wrote, "Yours truly," scratched that out, and contented himself by affixing merely his name. Then he copied the whole and dispatched it to his wife by messenger.