The Moon and Sixpence - Penn State University

Chapter XXIX
I KEPT SILENCE for a little while, thinking of what
Stroeve had told me. I could not stomach his
weakness, and he saw my disapproval. “You
know as well as I do how Strickland lived,” he
said tremulously. “I couldn’t let her live in those
circumstances — I simply couldn’t.”
“That’s your business,” I answered.
“What would you have done?” he asked.
“She went with her eyes open. If she had to
put up with certain inconveniences it was her
own lookout.”
“ Yes; but, you see, you don’t love her. ”
“Do you love her still?”
“Oh, more than ever. Strickland isn’t the man
to make a woman happy. It can’t last. I want
her to know that I shall never fail her. ”
“Does that mean that you’re prepared to take
her back?”
“I shouldn’t hesitate. Why, she’ll want me
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more than ever then. When she’s alone and humiliated
and broken it would be dreadful if she
had nowhere to go.”
He seemed to bear no resentment. I suppose it
was commonplace in me that I felt slightly outraged
at his lack of spirit. Perhaps he guessed
what was in my mind, for he said:
“I couldn’t expect her to love me as I loved
her. I’m a buffoon. I’m not the sort of man that
women love. I’ve always known that. I can’t
blame her if she’s fallen in love with Strickland.”
“ You certainly have less vanity than any man
I’ve ever known,” I said.
“I love her so much better than myself. It seems
to me that when vanity comes into love it can
only be because really you love yourself best. After
all, it constantly happens that a man when
he’s married falls in love with somebody else;
when he gets over it he returns to his wife, and
she takes him back, and everyone thinks it very
natural. Why should it be different with women?”