"Ah, how I love you--not because you love me, not because you are
an angel, not because you are a superior being. No, not for any reason in
all this wide world but because you are you. Do what you will and I shall
love you. Whether I had to look up among the stars or down in the mire to
find you, I would look just as steadily, just as proudly."
He drew along breath and his hand trembled. "If I were a traitor, then, if
you loved me, you would say, 'What! Is he to be found among traitors? How I
love treason!' If I were a coward, liar, thief, a sum of all the vices,
then, if you ever had loved me you would love me still. I want no love with
mental reservations, no love with ifs and buts and provided-thats. I want
love, free and fearless, that adapts itself to changing human nature as the
colour of the sea adapts itself to the colour of the sky; love that does
not have to be cajoled and persuaded lest it be not there when I most need
it. I want the love that loves."
"You know you have it." She had been compelled by his mood and was herself
in a fever. She looked at him with the expression which used to make his
nerves vibrate. "You know that no human being ever was more to another than
I to you. But you can't expect me to be just the same as you are.
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