His spirits revived wonderfully during this contemplation, and with them a surge of tender pity towards her. He did not want her to feel humiliated by his unfaithfulness.
"Janey, you mustn't think I don't thank you and honour you for all you've been to me."
"You don't know what I've been to you."
"What do you mean?"
"You don't realise what I've sacrificed for you. You talk of Tony Strife's purity and innocence as if it was more to her credit to have them than for me to have given them up—for your sake."
"Janey——"
"Listen, Quentin. There's one thing this girl will never do for you—I did it—and I think that now you despise me for it, in spite of your words. You don't know what it cost me. I did my best to hide my pain from you, because you were happy; but now I think you ought to know that this thing for which you despise me was—was the greatest act of self-sacrifice in my whole life. Oh, Quentin, I always meant to keep straight, because of my brothers, and because—because I wanted to be pure and good. Oh, I loved goodness and purity—I love them still, quite as much as Tony Strife loves them—and there were the poor boys, with only my example to restrain them. And then I loved you—and you asked me to climb over the gates of Paradise with you, because they would never be unlocked. Oh, God! I yielded because I loved you so. I gave up what was dearer to me than anything else in the world, the one thing I was struggling to keep unspotted, for my own sake and the boys'. I gave it up to you—and now ... and now ... you talk about another woman's purity and innocence."
Her voice died into tearless silence.
"Janey, you mustn't feel like that—you mustn't think that I reproach you. It's myself I blame—not you."
"But you do—you do—and I ought to have known it from the first."