"He isn't a young man," Burton contradicted.
Edith clasped her hands behind her head and looked fixedly up at the blue sky.
"Never mind his age," she murmured. "He is really very nice."
"I've seen his photograph in the drawing-room," Burton reminded her.
Edith frowned.
"He is really much better looking than that," she said with emphasis.
"It is perhaps as well," Burton retorted, "especially if he is in the habit of going about unattended."
Edith ignored his last speech altogether. "Mr. Bomford is also," she went on, "extremely pleasant and remarkably well-read. His manners are charming."
"I am sorry you are missing him so much," Burton said.
"A girl," Edith declared, with her head in the air, "naturally misses the small attentions to which she is accustomed from her fiancé."