"I don't know anything meaner than stealing money from a lot of hard-up students."
"There was Gertie," she said as though that were some sort of extenuation.
"Gertie—they've gone off on some rotten spree—not even married."
(He hated himself—the beastly righteousness of his voice, his contemptible exultation. It was as though he were under some horrid spell which twisted his love and anguish into the expressions of a spiteful prig. Why couldn't he tell her of those deadly, shapeless fears, of his loneliness, his sorrowful jealousies? He was shut up in the iron fastness of his own will—gagged and helpless.)
He saw her start. She stopped definitely in her work as though she were at last aware of some struggle between them. The room was growing dark, and she came a little nearer, trying to see his face.
"I don't suppose so. I don't think it would occur to them."
"No—that's what I should imagine."
"You're awfully hard on people, Robert."
"That sort of thing makes me sick. It ought to make you sick. I don't know why it doesn't. You don't seem to care—to have any standards. You're unmoral in your outlook—perhaps you're too young—you don't realize. A rotter like Howard who takes other people's money just to enjoy himself—a girl like Gertie Sumners who goes off with the first man who asks her——"
"You don't understand, Robert."