I shall see no one except my relatives.' Edith listened with a face of astonishment.
'You won't even see ME ?' she exclaimed.
'Indeed, I have no wish to lose your friendship.

Yet I am ashamed to ask you to come here when I can never return your visits.' 'Oh, please don't put it in that way! But it seems so very strange.' Edith could not help conjecturing the true significance of this resolve.
But, as is commonly the case with people in easy circumstances, she found it hard to believe that her friends were so straitened as to have a difficulty in supporting the ordinary obligations of a civilised state.
'I know how precious your husband's time is,' she added, as if to remove the effect of her last remark.

'Surely, there's no harm in my saying--we know each other well enough--you wouldn't think it necessary to devote an evening to entertaining us just because you had given us the pleasure of your company.

I put it very stupidly, but I'm sure you understand me, Amy.

Don't refuse just to come to our house now and then.' 'I'm afraid we shall have to be consistent, Edith.' 'But do you think this is a WISE thing to do ?' 'Wise ?' 'You know what you once told me, about how necessary it was for a novelist to study all sorts of people.