"Why do you speak so roughly and bitterly to me—as if it were my love only that had failed? Do you think I didn't know when first your love began to wane?"
He tried to brave it out.
"And why did it 'wane,' as you call it? Can a man be snubbed day in, day out, and yet keep at concert pitch forever?"
"You mean that I would not respond to you when you had been drinking?"
"Well—put it that way."
Sophy gave a tired sigh.
"Why must we go over it and over it?" she asked. "It is not me that you want, Morris—it is your own way. You never want what is yours—only what is out of reach. You have turned on Belinda now, only because she came to you too easily. If I came back to you—you would not want me any longer."
He sneered.
"It's easy to say what I would or wouldn't do. It's easy to arraign me. But what of yourself? I thought you were so great on unselfishness! Where's the unselfishness in all this, I'd like to know?"
"I'm not trying to be unselfish, Morris. I've been unselfish so long that I've nearly lost my best self. I find it's better to keep one's best self than to be selfless."