Emily’s things! There was something unbearably poignant to Edward in that. That delicate fawn-colored silk dress that had held her body, the beads from her neck, the shoes from her dancing feet ... all Emily’s things outraged, not wanted, the things she had chosen to be part of her presence—despised. “Lucy worked absurdly hard. She insisted on carrying the suitcases out on to the verandah; she made her insistence somehow insulting. She pulled Emily’s arm as they went to the verandah, as though to make it clear that this was a forcible ejection. Well, there was nothing for it. I fetched the chair-coolies. There was nothing to be done. Emily seemed to be beyond help—she was beyond her own control; she was crying so violently, crying with a sort of grin, a downward grin, in the violent way a child cries....” And now Edward was crying. He had his head upon his arms on the railing. He was crying without pretence. There was a whirlpool of helpless fury in his heart. To cry was all that he could do—because Emily had been made to cry so terribly. “Well, well, it’s a hysterical yarn altogether,” said Tam. He laid his hand on the back of Edward’s neck. The touch was meant to be sympathetically manly, but his fingers seemed to pinch Edward’s neck almost spitefully. “You poor thing ... Edward ... You’re a poor thing. You poor things can never be happy. Sorrow gravitates to people like you. You—poor—thing....” CHAPTER NINE Now I have nothing. Even the joy of loss— Even the dreams I had I now am losing. Only this thing I know; that you are using My heart as a stone to bear your foot across.... I am glad—I am glad—the stone is of your choosing.... Edward thought of Emily waiting for him at Shanghai. He had her address from Tam. He had telegraphed to her. But surely she would know, even without telegrams, that he was coming now. It was a dingy hotel in Shanghai. It had brown pillars painted to resemble marble. The resemblance was as faint as was that of the paper objects on the mantelpiece to flowers. Edward waited and waited. He had not told Stone where he was going. Stone had gone to a movie. Edward hoped that he would never see him again. Edward still had most of Stone’s remaining money in his suitcase. Somehow if he never saw Stone again Edward felt that the money would not matter. If one were never reminded one need not remember. A crime of which one was never accused was no crime. Edward had no self-accuser on the subject of money. There were limits to his humility and to his humiliation. Edward waited and waited. Even when Emily came he found himself still waiting. For she came with a group of people.