Oh! My loved one, do not make we wait too long!
Ye Gods! What a state of exaltation I was in when I wrote those lines last night! But they are the truth, even if I now laugh at my expansion!
I wonder how many men are romantic underneath like I am and ashamed to show it?
When Alathea had finished the verses for the second time, she again dropped the book in her lap.
"What is your conception of love?" I asked casually.
"As I shall always have to crush it out of my life from now onward I would rather not contemplate what my conception of it might have been."
"Why must you crush it out?" I asked blandly. "Your fidelity to me was not part of the bargain, fidelity has to do with the sex relationships, which do not concern us. One would not ask a secretary to become a nun, on account of one. One would only ask her to behave decently, so as not to shock the world's idea of the situation she was supposed to be filling."
Her face grew subtle, a look came into the eyes which might have come into George's or mine. I suddenly realized how well she really knows the world from the hard school the circumstances of her life have caused her to learn in.
"Then I may take a lover, some day, should I desire to?" she asked a little cynically.
"Certainly, if you tell me about it and don't deceive me, or make me look ridiculous. The bargain would be too unfair to you at your age otherwise."