René read no more. The old exasperation that the well-meaning Smallman had roused in him surged through him now, and he took pen and paper and wrote:
“MY DEAR, GOOD, KINDLY IDIOT,—When no spiritual entity is created, then no social entity is created; nothing is created but an amorphous relationship which is hostile to society, and such relationships it is the duty of decent people to avoid and to destroy. Nothing is created, and if by good luck the calamity of having children is averted, then there is nothing to destroy; then those who are apart in fact are better also apart in appearance.”
So, with a startling suddenness he was driven to a conclusion, and knew that, come what might, he would abide by it. What Smallman had said of Linda strengthened him, gave him a clearer idea of her than he had ever had, an idea, moreover, in which with heart and mind he could rejoice. There was fight in her, too.
He took up the Professor’s letter once more. It was rather a good letter, ably setting out everything to be considered, the various interests that would be injured—relations, friends, the university, the little community of cultured persons who would be delivered up to coarse, commercial Thrigsby and its tongues. Clearly Smallman’s dread was lest all these interests should be drawn down in the wreck of the young couple’s marriage, and René could shudder and sympathize at the suffering and distress he might be causing. His resolution weakened a little until he thought of Linda, and then he said:
“But we are saving ourselves. The marriage goes to hell or we do. They can’t have both.”
Smallman’s letter ended with a sentence worth the whole of the rest. It was as though he had written himself into something near imaginative perception and true friendship:
“But, my dear fellow, if you are resolved to continue in this blind and cruel folly, I can only pray and hope that the tragic trial it must be may make a man of you. Though you may be lost to us, I will pray, I believe in you enough to think, that you will not be altogether lost.”
René tore up his first indignant note, and wrote another, saying how much he appreciated the friendship and affection, how it had become impossible to turn back, and how it pleased him to know that between himself and those who had been his friends there would be the separation of circumstance, not that of enmity and bitterness.
This done, he posted his reply and wired to his bank in Thrigsby to find out how much money he possessed.