she of
course had no right 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 devotedly attached to her. 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 at all events by
threatening one; 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 towards 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'