"I am so glad you see that much, at any rate. I never deliberately
meant to do as I did. I slipped into my false position through
jealousy and agitation!"
"But surely through love--you loved me?"
"Yes. But I wanted to let it stop there, and go on always as mere
lovers; until--"
"But people in love couldn't live for ever like that!"
"Women could: men can't, because they--won't. An average woman is
in this superior to an average man--that she never instigates, only
responds. We ought to have lived in mental communion, and no more."
"I was the unhappy cause of the change, as I have said
before! ... Well, as you will! ... But human nature can't help
being itself."
"Oh yes--that's just what it has to learn--self-mastery."
"I repeat--if either were to blame it was not you but I."
"No--it was I. Your wickedness was only the natural man's desire
to possess the woman. Mine was not the reciprocal wish till envy
stimulated me to oust Arabella. I had thought I ought in charity to
let you approach me--that it was damnably selfish to torture you as
I did my other friend. But I shouldn't have given way if you hadn't
broken me down by making me fear you would go back to her... But
don't let us say any more about it! Jude, will you leave me to
myself now?"
"Yes... But Sue--my wife, as you are!" he burst out; "my old
reproach to you was, after all, a true one. You have never loved me
as I love you--never--never! Yours is not a passionate heart--your
heart does not burn in a flame! You are, upon the whole, a sort of
fay, or sprite--not a woman!"
"At first I did not love you, Jude; that I own. When I first knew
you I merely wanted you to love me. I did not exactly flirt with
you; but that inborn craving which undermines some women's morals
almost more than unbridled passion--the craving to attract and
captivate, regardless of the injury it may do the man--was in me; and
when I found I had caught you, I was frightened. And then--I don't
know how it was--I couldn't bear to let you go--possibly to Arabella
again--and so I got to love you, Jude. But you see, however fondly
it ended, it began in the selfish and cruel wish to make your heart
ache for me without letting mine ache for you."
"And now you add to your cruelty by leaving me!"