Captain Ross raised one eyebrow. The skin of his face looked so tight that one wondered how his eyebrow found leeway. Certainly he could not have moved both at once.
“Most ex-straw-dinary thing,” he said in a suffocated voice.
“Sure you won’t come to the Merriment for dinner, Emily?” asked Mr. Thompson. The faces of Mrs. Hoskins and Mrs. Thompson showed this plainly to be a man-like idiocy. It would have been impossible for either of them to tolerate a party at which there should be one woman too many.
“I’m dining with Edward tonight,” said Emily. “Another time, please, I’d love to.”
They were gone.
“Come up to my room,” said Emily.
Directly the door of her room was shut behind them, Emily’s face began to twitch. Her eyes looked twice as large as they had been; it was because they were full of tears.
“Oh, Edward,” she cried, running to him, “you have heard. You have heard. Isn’t this a terrible thing? Everything has been terrible that has happened to me. Edward ... I can’t ever stop crying. My eyes are tired of holding tears in....”
Edward had her at last in his arms. He sat on her bed and held her on his knee. She was rigid. She would not be comfortable. She pressed her face into his shoulder but her body was stiff and uncomforted. She cried, “Edward ... Edward ... Edward ... such a terrible thing....” Her crying sounded fantastically like laughter. She cried in a little weak downward scale, a little A-ha-ha-ha-ha ... and Oh Edward—with each upward breath.
Edward was trembling violently. He was racked with disgust because of his own dumbness. He stroked her hair with his shaking hand. He stroked the back of her neck, her twitching shoulder. He put his lips to her hair. She was murmuring something, but her mouth was against his shoulder. What was she saying? He was cursed. His ears shut from him small epoch-making sounds.