He paid no attention to this, and went to the sofa.
"Can I do anything for you?" he said. "Can't I get you some water, or some brandy?"
Elizabeth sat up.
"I shall be all right," she said. "I will just sit here a minute or two. Then I will go. Edith wants to talk to you. She—she has not seen you for so long."
Slowly her vitality returned, and with it for the second time that day the aching sense of the uselessness of her bitter, ironical words to her cousin, of the sheer stupidity of their wrangle. If Edith chose to tell a foolish tale about her ankle, it concerned nobody but herself. It did not matter, for one thing only in the world mattered. And with regard to that, for the present, she felt a total apathy. She had done her part; nobody, not even herself, could require anything more of her. She felt hugely and overwhelmingly tired, nothing more at all. She got up.
"I shall take your advice, Edith, and go to bed," she said. "If there is anything you want to tell me afterwards, please come up to my room. Good-night, Edward!"
Not till her steps had passed away up the stairs did either of the two others speak. Edith's face, firm, pretty, plump, showed not the slightest sign of emotion. She stood in front of the empty fire-place, waving her feather fan backwards and forwards opposite her knee, looking at it.
"I think you had better tell me what has happened," she said. "Or if you find a difficulty in doing that I will tell you. You imagine that you have fallen in love with Elizabeth."
An answer seemed superfluous. After a little pause she apparently thought so too, and went on, still in the same quiet, passionless tone.
"I have often watched you and her," she said. "She has used her music as an instrument to encourage you and draw you on——"