And yet the fact remained that they did not nearly fill her life.

With Edith's intellect and temperament they could only fill a part.
Bending down to a lower stature of intelligence all day long would make one's head ache; standing on tiptoe and stretching up would do the same; one needs a contemporary and a comrade.
Perhaps till Edith met Aylmer she had not quite realised what such real comradeship might mean, coupled with another feeling--not the intellectual sympathy she had for Vincy, but something quite different.
When she recollected their last drive her heart beat quickly, and the little memories of the few weeks of their friend-ship gave her unwonted moments of sentiment.

Above all, it was a real, solid happiness--an uplifting pleasure, to believe he was utterly devoted to her.

And so, in a moment of depression, a feeling of the sense of the futility of her life, she had, perhaps a little wantonly, written to ask him to come back.

It is human to play with what one loves.
She thought she had a soft, tender admiration for him, that he had a charm for her; that she admired him.