to divorce him--became
conscious, it seems, of the want of children, and commenced a long
attempt to induce her to go back to him and give him a child. I was her
trustee then, under your Grandfather's Will, and I watched this going
on. While watching, I became attached to her, devotedly attached. His
pressure increased, till one day she came to me here and practically put
herself under my protection. Her husband, who was kept informed of all
her movements, attempted to force us apart by bringing a divorce suit,
or possibly he really meant it, I don't know; but anyway our names were
publicly joined. That decided us, and we became united in fact. She
was divorced, married me, and you were born. We have lived in perfect
happiness, at least I have, and I believe your mother also. Soames, soon
after the divorce, married Fleur's mother, and she was born. That is the
story, Jon. I have told it you, because by the affection which we see
you have formed for this man's daughter you are blindly moving toward
what must utterly destroy your mother's happiness, if not your own.
I don't wish to speak of myself, because at my age there's no use
supposing I shall cumber the ground much longer, besides, what I should
suffer would be mainly on her account, and on yours. But what I want
you to realise is that feelings of horror and aversion such as those
can never be buried or forgotten. They are alive in her to-day. Only
yesterday at Lord's we happened to see Soames Forsyte. Her face, if you
had seen it, would have convinced you. The idea that you should marry
his daughter is a nightmare to her, Jon. I have nothing to say against
Fleur save that she is his daughter. But your children, if you married
her, would be the grandchildren of Soames, as much as of your mother, of
a man who once owned your mother as a man might own a slave. Think what
that would mean. By such a marriage you enter the camp which held your
mother prisoner and wherein she ate her heart out. You are just on the
threshold of life, you have only known this girl two months, and however
deeply you think you love her, I appeal to you to break it off at once.
Don't give your mother this rankling pain and humiliation during the
rest of her life. Young though she will always seem to me, she is
fifty-seven. Except for us two she has no one in the world. She will
soon have only you. Pluck up your spirit, Jon, and break away. Don't put
this cloud and barrier between you. Don't brea