"Not even time. Life's not over—but it's life with a difference. I don't complain. I accept that readily. I almost welcome it. I may cheat the world, but I won't cheat myself. I'm not at my old trick of having it both ways for myself, Austin."
She was determined to see clearly herself, but admitted no obligation to allow outsiders a view. She would not minimize the thing for herself, but was quite ready to induce the rest of the world to ignore it. It was her affair. To her the difference was made, over her life the hurricane had swept.
"I have no kith or kin; nobody is bound to me. The love of my friends is free—free to withhold, free to give. I did it for myself, open-eyed. There is nobody who has a right to harbor it against me."
And she meant that there never should be? It sounded like that.
"As a private offense against him, or her, I mean—as a personal offense. Of course they've a right to their opinions—and with their opinions I expect I should agree."
She would agree with the opinions, but did not feel bound to furnish material for them. She could hardly be blamed there. The candle and the white sheet—in open congregation—have fallen into such general disuse that Jenny could not be asked to revive them. So far she might be excused—people do not expect confessions. But she seemed to underrate what she termed "opinions" even though, as opinions, she thought that she would agree with them. On this subject neither Alison nor Mrs. Jepps would talk of "opinions"; they would use other words. When she said that there was nobody who had a right to harbor the affair against her, it was easy to understand her meaning; but her meaning did not exhaust the case. Society claims the right—and has the power—to harbor things against us; hence the gallows, the prisons, and decrees of social banishment. However, this sort of talk was confidential—between her and me only. If society were disposed to give her the benefit of the doubt, it would be very unlike Jenny not to make the thing as easy as possible for society. Often society has no objection to being "cheated"; it will let you shut its eyes to what you have done—strictly on condition that you do not so much as hint that you had any right to do it. But it was doubtful whether Jenny would find all Catsford in this accommodating temper.
"What's your opinion?" she asked abruptly.
"If I understand you rightly, you did a serious thing; on any theory and to anybody who thinks—never mind his precise views—a very serious thing. But you seem to know that well enough, and more talk about it won't mend matters."
"It was a wonderful time—my time of defiance—my time of surrender. At least I tried to make it surrender—and my greatest surrender was to consent not to go on defying. While I defied, I could surrender—because I could lose sight of everything in him. He was big enough, Austin! I seemed then to be putting the world—both worlds, if you like—quite out of sight, annihilating them for myself, saying I could get on without them if only I had Leonard—or, rather, if only Leonard would—would swallow me up!" She looked at me with one of her straight candid glances. "Well, he had no objection to that." Her lips curved in a reluctant smile. "You wouldn't expect him to have, would you? We made a plan. We were to go to Africa—somewhere in British East Africa—and live there—away from everything. Not because of fear or anything of that sort, you know—but because we felt we could get on better there. I wanted to strip myself of everything that made me distinct from him—of all I had or was, apart from him. I knew all the time that here, at home, we should be impossible together; you know I felt that because you watched the whole thing, Austin, and must have known that only that feeling could have kept me from him. Well, I could only try to drive out that fear of him by accepting all it meant—by being quite natural about it—by saying, 'I've an instinct that you'll absorb me; I yield to it—only make it easy—give it the best chance—don't keep me where all sorts of things compel me to struggle against it. Struggling isn't a possible life; perhaps surrender is. Let's try.' All this was the underlying thing—the real thing that was going on. On the top we were doing all sorts of interesting outside things—he was a wonderful companion—but this was what we were battling out all the time—how to make it work—how we could give our lives a chance of working together. We both wanted that—and we both knew that it was horribly difficult. The greatest thing about him is that he knew my side of the difficulty so extraordinarily well. Isn't that rather rare?"
"To his mind you were a great woman. He called you so to me. That accounts for it."