Page:Love's trilogy.djvu/190

 all the time I had no right to demand anything from you. Of my own free will I came to you and gave myself to you—you never tied me by promises and conditions. But you were very, very good to me. You were too good. This is my only excuse for finding it so difficult to let you go.

'But before we part, I wish you to know how altogether foolish and undignified I have been in my relationship to you. From the very first day I believed it would end in marriage. When I told you I had no wish to marry you, when I even assured you I should consider it perfect madness—I told you a lie. All my thoughts and longings were directed to the one aim of making myself so necessary to you that some day you would ask me to be your wife.

'I am not at all that dignified, high-minded girl you thought me. Behind all my brave show of independence was lurking, first unconsciously then intentionally, the cowardly bourgeois hope that ultimately we should have the legitimate church blessing on our relationship.

'My calculation failed miserably. During these days I have asked myself if I did not set about it in the most foolish way. I might more surely have reached my goal if I had been more reserved in my way of loving.

'But after all, I believe I chose the only way possible for me, because I loved you too well to barter myself inch by inch for the highest price.

'I have lost my game, but I don't regret it; how-