Kenneth Murless has come over to Paris in the Embassy—as First Secretary. I see a good deal of him and he keeps me amused. When are you going to be sensible and make a career for yourself? I’m a little tired of being a grass widow, though as a rest-cure it has done me good! I’m ready to forget and forgive, if you care to join me here. Besides, it must be one thing or the other. . . .
Those words were underlined.
At the end of her letter she signed herself “Yours affectionately,” and Bertram laughed aloud at the words, but not with any merriment of soul. She had wept when the Lely had gone, not much when he had gone! . . . Kenneth Murless amused her. She saw a lot of him. . . . She was ready to forget and forgive!
He wrote a raging letter to her, and then tore it up. He accused her of damned heartlessness, told her that he would never play her lap-dog again, reminded her of the things she had said to him at Holme Ottery, and ended by saying that if Kenneth Murless amused her so much, she had better make it one thing or the other, as far as he was concerned. He would be glad to know her decision.
Having written all that, he heard, almost with physical audibility, the words his mother had spoken to him on her death-bed. “Work for Peace, Bertram!” She meant peace in Europe, between peoples, with Ireland, but the spirit of peace must begin in the heart of the individual, between one and another—even between husband and wife. He wrote another letter, less violent.
Dear Joyce:
I’m still trying to earn a living. I’m sorry you don’t like my articles, because they’re the way to that possibility. You say you’re ready to forget and forgive. That seems to me hardly good enough. When you tell me you love me again and want my love, I’ll come to you. I thought that was understood between us. . . .
He referred to her sympathy with his family afflictions:
. . . Yes, it’s sad about Digby, and mother’s death leaves me very much alone. . . .
That correspondence with Joyce didn’t seem to alter much in their relations to each other. It left him in exactly the same situation spiritually, and physically—a husband “on probation,” with a verdict of disloyalty against him, but an offer of pardon on recantation of faith.