"If I did tell you that, it was because I thought you cared for Edie."
"I do care for her."
"You've rather a strange way of showing it. I wonder if you realise how much she did care? What it must have meant to her when she got ill? What it meant to him? Have you the remotest conception of the infernal hardship of it?"
"I know it was hard."
"Forgive me; you don't know, or you wouldn't be so hard on both of them."
"It isn't I who am hard."
"Isn't it? When you're just proposing to stop Gorst's coming here?"
"It's not I that's stopping him. It's his own conduct. He is hard on himself, and he is hard on her. There's nobody else to blame."
"Do you mean to say you think I'm actually going to tell him not to come any more?"
"My dear, it's the least you can do for me after—"