“Hey, hey....” shouted Tam, for once losing his confidence. “Come back, Edward. This is an outrage. You blithering fools. Have got muchee money, what? Two piecee dollar per headee ... three dollar ... four dollar ... what you likee, blast your eyes....” He and Stone were pushed on shore again. They were ankle-deep in soft mud. The boat filled with soldiers and was pushed off. Tam was furious. He had been made ridiculous. They sat in a sombre row on the steps. There was a long silence. They watched the boat that had refused them make its difficult way across the river. They were all half conscious of the hope that it might be hit by a stray bullet or two, that they might be avenged. But all the shots went wide. White upright needles of water showed where the shots fell, far short of the path of the crossing boats. “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.