not until I find myself safe in the arms that bore me first. God knows how deeply it would affect me if you conquered me, or what I would do for very gratitude and happiness under the first close caress� . Stir not anything of that in me, Euan. Let me not even dream of it. It were not well for me — not well for me. For whether I love you as I do, or — otherwise and less purely — it would be all the same — and I should become — something — which I am not — wedded or otherwise — not my free self, but to my lesser self a slave, without ambition, pride — wavering in that fixed resolve which has brought me hither� . And I should live and die your lesser satellite, unhappy to the very end.”

After a silence, I said