“His honour rooted in dishonour stood,
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.”
He remembered words he’d spoken once to Christy. “I believe in loyalty.” He had said them sincerely then, before temptation had come, testing him under heavy strain. But there was something in him still which forbade, under pain of self-torture, easy ways of escape which many men chose in such a case as his—new love for old, a kind mistress for an unkind wife, excuse for divorce, the usual routine.
What forbade him? What did he mean by conscience? Not religious scruples, for he had no certain faith. Not rigid principles of high morality, for he was tolerant of other men’s personal arrangements in this affair of sex. But by heredity, environment, upbringing, his mind was hedged round with restraints and secret laws. If he broke them, he would break himself. He could only be disloyal to such laws within himself by being an outlaw to his own code. Joyce had gone away from him, but he must be faithful in body and soul to his pledge of loyalty to her, or suffer hideously in self-esteem.
Perhaps that was egotism again, the need of self-pride, the prick of self-conceit and not of conscience. All very difficult! Who could get down to the hidden springs, even in his own soul? One could only know the effect of their working, by experience of mental states resulting from thwarted instincts or acts opposed to instincts. One could balance the profit and loss of obedience to the inner law and disobedience. Obedience was generally more profitable, however difficult to resist the lure of disobedience. When the lure was too strong in its spell, Christy’s advice was “Cut and run!” Not heroic, but safer. . . .
When he told Janet that he owed her the best chance of his life, his voice broke a little.
“When are you starting?” she asked, and when he told her that he was crossing to France the very next day, she exclaimed, like Bernard Hall, that there was no such burning hurry. But he told her he was in a hurry to “make good,” as the Americans say, and that if he stayed a few more days in town he might have to seek escape from loneliness again in her little sanctuary, which would strain her patience, and his virtue.
That seemed to amuse her mightily, and she mocked him as a modern St. Anthony, and liked his flattery (she said) of her poor beauty.
She sent her love to Christy, if Bertram had the chance of meeting him in Moscow.