“Emily did come here, though, didn’t she?” said Edward in a strained voice.
Tam’s face brightened. This story ministered to his vanity. He was enjoying the telling of it.
“Why, of course she did. She was a wonderful secretary. If she’d wanted to go, I wouldn’t have allowed it. She didn’t want to. All the way up the river she kept up these curious fantastic moods. She would say the most extravagantly affectionate and admiring things about Lucy. She talked—curiously enough—a great deal about you, Edward. You don’t mind my saying that she laughed at you a lot. When Emily is malicious she is very amusing. That side of her cleverness doesn’t annoy me; that form of her humor is a sort of complement to my humor—which is essentially unmalicious. I love everyone. I really do. I love loving—so I love. So she and I don’t collide there, as it were. However, it evidently relieved and pleased her to think and talk a good deal of you. She had a devil’s manner to me; it was hardly bearable sometimes. She never missed an opportunity of slighting me. She put on a sort of disguise of sneering humility. She would offer to go away if she were sitting with Lucy and I came up.”
Poor Emily. Edward knew so terribly well these heartbreaking defiances of the mind. She had sneered at him—Edward. Perhaps it had really relieved her to hide herself in sneers. Self-torturer though he was, he could not conceive that she would really sneer at him with her heart. He thought he could face this possibility but actually he vaguely imagined witty and gratifying criticism of his modesty and his intensity. He only imagined mockery from her that he could have borne to hear. He thought, “Our selfless hero is willing to be sacrificed on the altar of her pain.”
Tam was saying, “Yes, of course she came here. She was here for three days.”
There was another uproar among the soldiers on the beach.
“Gee, there’s some white men in trouble,” said Stone. He jumped to his feet and hurried towards the scene of the trouble. Two Englishmen in a motor-boat were holding themselves several yards from the shore. Their intention was to pick up a third Englishman who was waiting on the beach. But the intention of about fifty Chinese soldiers evidently was to board the boat as soon as it touched the shore. Everyone was angry. Tam and Edward and Stone joined the marooned Englishman on land. This re-inforcement rather disconcerted the soldiers. The motor boat drew in. Tam, Edward, Stone and the stranger flew into the air at the same second. There they were, safe in the boat. Edward had slightly sprained his ankle. A Chinese soldier was unfortunately found to be safe in the boat too.
“Push him over,” said the steersman in a savage voice.
“Oh, let him stay,” said Tam, laying his hand on the nervous soldier’s knee. “He’s equalled my long-jump record. He deserves to be preserved.”
Everyone except Edward smiled and felt kindly towards Tam and the intrusive soldier. The boat made a noise like a mammoth typewriter and faced upstream.