等一下是我想多了还是

摘自The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
《Commonplaces》 by Naomi Novik
"He married," Holmes said.
No need to ask who he meant, of course. "I encouraged it," he added. "I wished that he were not necessary to me, and so I convinced myself he was not; that I would do better for solitude." He smiled, that wry look again. "I have had more than enough leisure since to contemplate the irony of having successfully deceived myself, who could scarcely be led astray by the most dedicated attempts of all the criminals in London."
She did not ask him, of course, but there was a weary regret in his face that made her quite certain the two of them had never been lovers. He had thought of it, and rejected it, likely in defense of that same independence. Watson would have crossed that Rubicon for him, but he would never have left, afterwards. A line from the story recalled itself to her: He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer—some bitterness there, in Watson's words; he knew he had been refused, whether consciously or not. The marriage, Irene thought, had been some part revenge, and one startlingly complete, to have driven the man across the table into flight.