therefore one day that we discussed Marie's possible marriage to another. Most impressively did I beg Marie to be a good and loving wife to her future husband, and never to be untrue to him except when I was concerned. For this was the one certain fact, the unshakable basis of Marie's life, that her Creator had made her for me, and that at all times mine was the first right—a right which no one could ever dispute or annul.
This Marie understood, and in this we were at one. She knew that it could never be otherwise. But she was not quite sure whether or not she ought to tell her husband about our relationship. Was it not her duty to let him know that she was not the pure girl he might perhaps imagine her to be?
I felt sure that Marie had asked this question in all good faith. Like many another weak soul, she had been led astray by those quack moralists who are flourishing nowadays. The greater the necessity to have a serious talk with her.
'You silly little child,' I said. 'Can't you see what foolishness you talk? Of course, Marie, if you marry a man who is hard and who treats you badly, then—as a revenge—tell him that you have had a real lover, a lover who spoiled you in every possible way, and who taught you the joy of love. But to tell this to a brave and good fellow, who has done his utmost to make you happy, imagining himself the first and only one in your life—how could you have the heart to do that? You would wound him more
