He is good and kind to every one but me," she continued resentfully: "if Dinah had said that, he would not have answered her so curtly and then turned on his heel and left her." Here Elizabeth wilfully ignored the fact that Cedric had signalled to him somewhat impatiently.
"I believe that he has made a vow not to speak to me if he can help it." Elizabeth was in a restless, irritable frame of mind that prevented her from taking a reasonable view of things.

If she had been less alive to her own embarrassment and discomfort, she would have discovered for herself that Malcolm was ill at ease too.
If he had not talked much to her, he had watched her closely, and it had troubled and pained him to see how thin and worn she looked; in the strong light he had even noticed a faint tinge of gray in her bright brown hair.
"She is pitiless to herself as well as to me," he said to himself bitterly; "if she goes on like this, she will be an old woman before her time.

Her life is too limited: it suits Dinah, but it does not suit Elizabeth.

Why should she spend her lime teaching village children and fagging after that old man"-- for Malcolm was growing hopeless and embittered.
The evening had not been productive of much comfort to either of them; a sense of widening estrangement, of ever-deepening misunderstanding kept them apart.

When Elizabeth went to the piano--for she had been induced to resume her singing--Malcolm did not follow her; neither did she sing one of his favourite songs.