“Oh, you can’t hear, you can’t hear. Nobody can save me.” She slipped her shoulder from under his hand. She stood up. “There is no comfort anywhere for me,” she said. She looked out of the window. She was more quiet but often her long upward breaths were sobs. “Go away, Edward. I can’t dine anywhere with you. With people looking on. I can’t stop crying any more.” The time for touching her was perhaps over, but he stood beside her at the window and took her indifferent hand. “I can’t go away. I can’t leave you alone.” “I can never be alone. That’s the dreadful part. I can’t get away from myself. I am horrible to myself.” “You are perfect to me.” Her hand in his trembled a little. What did she say? She spoke in such a shaking small voice. “Yes ... after all my lovely life ... I am loved by you.” Could she have said that? There was a long silence but they were standing hand in hand all the time. “I will order dinner to be sent up here,” said Edward. “The waiter would see me crying. People would talk if I dined with a man in my bedroom.” “Listen, Emily, lie down. I will go out and buy ... strawberries and cream ... and asparagus ... and cheese straws ... and champagne ... the most perfect things to eat and drink in the world. Couldn’t you laugh again, sitting picnicking cross-legged on the floor ... as we sat in the California forests?” She gave a loud broken cry and threw up her hands. “Oh, Tam ... Tam ... Tam ...” “Lie down, Emily.” “Tam ... Tam ... Tam ...” “Lie down, Emily.” She lay face downwards on her bed. He noticed that her face fitted into a depression in the pillow that was already there. So she had already spent hours in that attitude. 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.”