"What's the matter?" she cried. "Cried" is written, but her exclamation actually gained in emphasis from the fact that, not to wake the Bit, she voiced it in a whisper.
For a moment Amory wondered why she should speak like that. Then it occurred to her that the face of a person under spinal anaesthesia might in itself be a reason. She had forgotten her face.
"May I come in?" she asked.
She took Dorothy's "Shut the door—and speak low, please—what do you want?" as an intimation that she might. Amory entered. But she was not asked to sit down. The man who runs with a fire-call, or fetches a doctor in the night, is not asked to sit down, and some urgency of that kind appeared to be Dorothy's conception of Amory's visit.
"What do you want?" she demanded again.
Amory herself felt foolish at her own reply. It was so futile, so piteous, so true. She stood as helpless as a Bit before Dorothy.
"I—I don't know," she said.
"What's the matter? What are you looking like that for? Has anything happened to Cosimo?"
"No. No. No. He's coming home. No. Nothing's happened."
"Can I be of use to you?" She was prepared to be that.