She lived apart. We were in Germany at
the time. I was naturalising plants for the Grand Duke of Baden--filling
the rocks and glades in the Black Forest. She went into an hotel in
Donaueschingen, and I went to see her every day. We were friends. Then we
went to England, to London. She held to that way of life, and I did the
best I could for myself. At any moment I would have taken her. I
considered myself bound in every way. I could have been happy with her.
She had great charm for me--great physical charm, I mean--and sweet,
affectionate ways. I could have made her a wife and a mother.
"I intended her the highest honour I could show to a woman. To make her
your property by legal process and the sanction of custom seems to me like
sacrilege. But, however--One day she told me that a former lover of hers
wanted to marry her, and left it for me to judge. She wouldn't say whether
she wished it herself or not; but I knew that she did, for when I advised
her to accept him she got up and put her arms round my neck and kissed
both my cheeks. I was her elder brother, I perceived, and said so. She
laughed, and owned to it. And yet she had loved me, you know. She had
refused that same man for me.
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