I have an idea which will please you, Richard.
What if you paid me a short visit? Without committing either of us—you understand? Just a brief, friendly meeting to refresh our pleasant and unpleasant memories?
I am dying for somebody to speak to, and who could I ask better than yourself?
But, just to please me, come without saying a word to anyone. Nobody need know that you are on a visit to your former wife, need they? We are free to follow our own fancies, but there is no need to set people gossiping.
Who knows whether the time may not come when I may take my revenge and keep the promise I made you the last evening we spent together? When two people have lived together as long as we have, separation is a mere figure of speech. People do not separate after twenty-two years of married life, even if each goes a different road for a time.
But why talk of the future. The present concerns us more nearly, and interests me far more.
Come, then, dear friend, and I will give you such a welcome that you will not regret the journey.
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
Joergen Malthe paid me a flying visit last week. Business brought him into the neighbourhood, and he called unexpectedly and spent an hour with me.
I must say he has altered, and not for the better.