The old smart revived; or rather, the old indelible impressions of it left on nerve and brain.
The letters lay on his knee. He sat brooding: his hands upon the packets, his head bowed. One might have thought him a man overcome and dissolved by the enervating memories of passion; but in truth, he was gradually and steadily reacting against them; resuming, and this time finally, as far as Chloe Fairmile was concerned, a man's mastery of himself. He thought of her unkindness and cruelty--of the misery he had suffered--and now of the reckless caprice with which, during the preceding weeks, she had tried to entangle him afresh, with no respect for his married life, for his own or Daphne's peace of mind.
He judged her, and therewith, himself. Looking back upon the four years since Chloe Fairmile had thrown him over, it seemed to him that, in some ways, he had made a good job of his life, and, in others, a bad one. As to the money, that was neither here nor there. It had been amusing to have so much of it; though of late Daphne's constant reminders that the fortune was hers and not his, had been like grit in the mouth. But he did not find that boundless wealth had made as much difference to him as he had expected. On the other hand, he had been much happier with Daphne than he had thought he should be, up to the time of their coming to Heston. She wasn't easy to live with, and she had been often, before now, ridiculously jealous; but you could not, apparently, live with a woman without getting very fond of her--he couldn't--especially if she had given you a child; and if Daphne had turned against him now, for a bit--well, he could not swear to himself that he had been free from blame; and it perhaps served him right for having gone out deliberately to the States to marry money--with a wife thrown in--in that shabby sort of way.
But, now, to straighten out this coil; to shake himself finally free of Chloe, and make Daphne happy again! He vowed to himself that he could and would make her happy--just as she had been in their early days together. The memory of her lying white and exhausted after child-birth, with the little dark head beside her, came across him, and melted him; he thought of her with longing and tenderness.