No other woman saw
him with eyes like hers! How did she know that? No woman on earth loved
him as she did? What if he should show her the contrary? He must no
longer love, only permit himself to be loved! This advice did not
displease him. In fact perhaps it was sensible to direct a wild life
full of adventures which, in reality, were meaningless, monotonous, and
profoundly unsatisfying, into the channels of a regulation domestic
existence. But if he himself decided to bring it to a close, it should
not be the end which Else wished to force upon him.
The more deeply he entered into the idea of the late marriage with Else,
the more angry it made him. What presumption in this woman, who was
years his senior! Did she really believe that he, according to her own
estimation a man in the prime of life, had no other claims upon existence
than to possess a home, in other words to have a housekeeper, who would
make him soups, and a nurse who would wrap his rheumatic limbs in cotton
wool. Deuce take it, he was by no means such an invalid. He was still
sailing erect, before the wind, with swelling canvas and fluttering
streamers.
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