human
Well, what then?
gpt
Then you'd be committing a sacrilege against yourself--if you married any one else but me.
human
You say that, because it seems so to you. I take another view of it. Love to me does not necessarily mean marriage, any more than marriage necessarily implies love. There have been happy marriages without love, and there can be honorable love that doesn't ask marriage as its object. If I married you now, I should seem to myself to be deserting a high impulse for a lower one.
gpt
There's only one sort of impulse to love.
human
Not to my love. I know what you mean--but my love has more than one prompting, and the highest is--or I hope it is--to try to do what's right.
gpt
But this would not be right.
human
I'm the only judge of that.
gpt
Not if we love each other. In that case I become a judge of it, too.
human
Very well; I'll admit it. Perhaps it's true. In any case, I'd rather things were clear to you. It will help us both. I'll tell you what I'm doing, and why I'm doing it.