And all the time he kept saying to himself, "What next?"
There was a knock at the door.
"It's Jane," he said. "I'll tell her not to come in." His voice sounded hoarse and unlike his own.
"Oh, mayn't I see her?"
He looked up with his clouded eyes. "Do you want to?"
"Yes."
He considered. He hesitated.
"Do you mind?"
"Mind?" he repeated. As if, after what they had gone through, there could ever be anything to mind. It seemed to him that things would always henceforth be insubstantial, and events utterly unimportant. He tried with an immense effort to grasp this event of Jane's appearance and of Kitty's attitude to Jane.
"I thought," he said, "perhaps she would bother you."