She was still in that attitude when he came in—laden. A laden Chinese from the shop was behind him outside the door. Edward had bought thin Chinese plates patterned with green dragons; he had bought two gold-colored Venetian glasses for the champagne. He had not even forgotten a corkscrew. He spread supper on a fine Swatow table-cloth on the floor. Emily took no notice. Edward thought, “Is this silly or is it just right—to have supper on the floor? Would another man have done it differently—bought a table or something?”
He touched Emily’s hair.
“Look ... darling little Emily.”
She was not crying when she lifted her face. She got up and put her arms round his neck. “Charming Edward, gentle, comforting, funny, Edward.”
His name sounded exquisite like that.
When she had drunk a glass of champagne her eyes were quite dry. Neither she nor Edward spoke for a long time. Emily ate a little of everything that he had bought. But she would not keep pace with him in drinking champagne. Now he was sure he would hear everything she said; she might say some tiny perfect thing that would otherwise have escaped him. But all she said was, “Toby Ross wants me to marry him.”
“Sensible feller,” said Edward. He was careful to be very calm, but secretly he was rigid with anger against Ross. Edward hoped that Ross was capable of feeling the pain that he deserved.
“I suppose that would seem to you the last degradation. To become a memsahib. To paint one’s face and talk malevolently about ‘people not quite of our class.’ To play bridge very well and have ‘absolutely no time to read, my dear.’ To spend all one’s energies on scoring off other women. It would certainly be a ... flat end to all high adventurousness. I met Toby in India—it seems a hundred years ago, really six years ago. (Was I alive six years ago? I wonder how I used my thoughts up—six years ago.) What do you think of Toby, Edward? Somehow I can’t compare him with other people. He hates highbrows. He is even a little ashamed of reading Charles Lever. When he says something that is not so stupid, I think proudly ‘that’s darn good for Toby.’... I don’t know why I feel like that. About nine out of ten things he says prove that he has missed the whole point; the tenth thing, well, perhaps I put the cleverness into it myself ... kind of defensively ... anyway I pretend to myself that it is a tiny bit clever. I have been so much ... afraid of Tam all these three years that I thought a great deal about Toby ... and about you, Edward, lately. A sort of safety. I thought, ‘Well, even if he despises me, Toby and Edward don’t ... and sometimes they are perhaps a little bit wonderful too.’ I often think of something you said about Elijah’s cloak dropped by mistake from the flaming aeroplane and then I think, ‘Why ... why, Tam, there’s a waiting list of clever men for me.’ If you are despised you build walls round the last little stronghold of your vanity. Mine were weak walls. They fell down altogether at Chungking. I don’t know why things have happened to me this way. I’m the sort of person, Edward, who is always said to be charming—by people who don’t love me. Elderly men and kind women seem to think I’m everywhere beloved. Perhaps I swagger a bit ... not in so many words, of course. One thing I can never swagger about, the only perfect thing in my life ... that the most darling and wonderful man in the world ... loved me for an hour or two....”
After a pause she said, “I suppose Tam is right. I am too conscious, too watchful of what is happening to me.”
And then presently, “But you do love me—Edward, say quickly—you do love me, don’t you?”