A Gentleman is Honest.
He admits his demerits frankly.
The challenge of truthfulness becomes a serious hurdle when fault and disfavor can be found in us as a result. This is a burden that all men, for we all have failings, carry. The requirement of "frankness" is absolute. No equivication or dodging. Those efforts mean that one does not want others to value of the demerit correctly. He wants credit for the admission/confession but not clarity on just how bad his action was. Equivication just means that he knows how bad he was but doesn't want that value communicated. A gentleman is a servant of his society and he knows that he is responsible to remove his faults from the scene. He knows he should have had power over them to begin with but since they bore fruit, he must own them completely.
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I don't know if an "equal and opposite reaction" is natural to the two but the ethical aesthetics are pleased by your point. If a boor lists and magnifys his credits without respect to audience, ought not the gentleman avoid that degree of communication of his demerits? "Frank" has a certain clarity and precision to it that the braggart does not.
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