“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?” “I’m a very dumb person,” said Edward. “It is great pain to me to be so ... shut away from the hope of really telling you how much I love you. Emily, would you—but, please, you must—you must marry me tomorrow?” What was she saying? Her head was on his shoulder. She spoke softly but now he could hear. He was listening and planning just as though he were a real man—not Edward. Adequate at last.