All very well, had not the reasoning been utterly insincere.
It might have applied to another person; in Jane's case it was mere sophistry.

Her nature was home-keeping; to force her into alliance with conscious philanthropists was to set her in the falsest position conceivable; striving to mould herself to the desires of those she loved, she would suffer patiently and in secret mourn for the time when she had been obscure and happy.

These things Sidney knew with a certainty only less than that wherewith he judged his own sensations; between Jane and himself the sympathy was perfect.

And in despite of scruple he would before long have obeyed the natural impulse of his heart, had it not been that still graver complications declared themselves, and by exasperating his over-sensitive pride made him reckless of the pain he gave to others so long as his own self-torture was made sufficiently acute.
With Joseph Snowdon he was doing his best to be on genial terms, but the task was a hard one.

The more he saw of Joseph, the less he liked him.