For a time, Edward had stayed on in London. He continued to visit Mary and sometimes met Scriven, who lolled about the house when he was at home, fingering a cheap cigar. Scriven was half-guarded, half-insolent—taking it for granted that he’d be disapproved of. His handsome, sulky face drew into a sneer when he spoke. He asked a great many questions about Mr. and Mrs. Vernon, obviously for Edward’s benefit—particularly about Mrs. Vernon, to whom he referred as “my esteemed mother-in-law.” “If ever I make a penny-piece we shall have your whole family round here within the day,” was one of his favourite comments. It was plain how Mary hated all this, but she wouldn’t show it. She laughed and went on with her sewing or got up with some casual joke and strolled into the kitchen to prepare food. She was developing, under the stress of her married life, a quite unfamiliar vein of humour, adapted partly from Scriven’s sarcasm, partly from Richard’s rarely made, dry, mild jokes. She was building up her fortifications. Even when Edward and she were alone together now, she avoided the personal, warded off his tentative approaches and his unspoken sympathy with funny little stories about tradesmen’s bills, people they’d met at parties, remarks she’d overheard at the green-grocer’s, which baffled and finally rather bored him. He accepted her tactics and was funny, too. He could always, he now discovered, be funny. He wished he’d learnt the knack earlier, at school.

Edward had visited Richard, too. Even after that scene he couldn’t stay away altogether. And both Richard and Lily had sent him notes—Lily’s bright and semi-formal; Richard’s cordial but brief. “You must try and find the time to look us up soon.” That was irony indeed. Time—Edward had nothing but Time. He fidgeted about Town, dabbled and dawdled, could settle to nothing. From a seat in the park, from an armchair in his club, he regarded the enormous horizons which opened before his time, his money and his talents. Such horizons appalled him. He ordered a drink. Then another.

And at Earl’s Court Lily welcomed him with conscientious brightness. She didn’t like him, he knew that. Well, he didn’t like her either. She left Richard and Edward alone together, after dinner, with some ceremony. “I know you’ve always such a lot to talk about.” They had absolutely nothing. Richard, who wouldn’t admit this, it seemed, even to himself, filled the silence between them with loud, uneasy joviality. When they were all three upstairs, later, in the drawing-room, the eyes of the married pair scarcely left each other for a moment. They appeared almost to forget his presence. Edward generally made an excuse to be out of the house before ten. At this they were genuinely surprised. Richard, indeed, had actually expressed his qualms: