Yes! you are quite right: I love her! Why should you imagine I would wish to deny it, or dissemble it as a weakness? Did I ever tell you that the consequence of indulgence in the pleasures of harem loves would be to drown the heart, the soul, and the aspirations towards the ideal for the sole advantage of the senses? Where you seem to see the defeat of one vanquished, I find the triumph of my happiness and the enchantment of a dream which I am realizing during my waking hours. Compare with this secret and charming bond of union which attaches me to Kondje-Gul, the prosaic and vulgar character of those common intrigues which one cynically permits the whole world to observe, or of those illicit connections which the hypocritical remnant of virtue with us constrains us to conceal, like crimes, in the darkness. Deceptive frenzies they are, the enjoyment of which always involves of necessity the degradation of the woman and the contempt of the lover! You may preach and dogmatise as much as you like in your endeavours to uphold the superiority of our habits over those of the East, which you declare to be barbarous; you will never succeed in doing anything more than entangling yourself in your own paradox. The fact is that in the refined epoch, so-called, in which we live, every description of non-legitimized union in love becomes a libertinage, and the woman who abandons herself to it becomes a profane idol. Whether she be a duchess, or a foolish maid, you may write verses over her fall, but you cannot forget it. The worm is in the fruit. My love for Kondje-Gul knows no such shame, and needs no guilty excuses. Proud of her slavish submission, she can love me without derogating in the least from her own self-respect. In Kondje's eyes, her tender embraces are legitimate, her glory is the conquest of my heart. I am her master, and she abandons herself to me without transgressing any duty. Being a daughter of Asia, she fulfils her destiny according to the moral usages and the beliefs of her native land: to these she remains faithful in loving me: her religion has no different rule, her virtue no different law. That is why I love her, and why my heart is possessed by such a frank and open loyalty towards her. You speak to me about the future, and ask me what will happen when the time comes for my marriage to Anna Campbell? Well, the future is still in the distance, my dear fellow; when it comes upon me we will see what I will do! Meanwhile I love and content myself with loving!