"Indeed," returned Edith.
"I am, indeed," he answered, and the impropriety of his remark struck Edith's ear discordantly.
"What a great teaser you are, Jasper," said Mrs. Cobb.
"A chip of the old block," said Mr. Cobb, smiling at his joke, as he took it to be.
"Jasper does not mean a word of it," said Mrs. Cobb, at the same time hoping that he did.
"With due consideration for my friend, Mr. Monroe," said Edith, "I will turn my attention to him."
Then Edith summoned up all her latent substitutes for naturalness, and bore down upon Mr. Monroe with such a load of banter and mirthful sayings that that gentleman eventually smiled, to the surprise of everybody. Then it became alarmingly noticeable that Mr. Monroe was paying close attention to Edith's highly interesting but entirely assumed form of gabbling—so much so, in fact, that it was feared by Mrs. Cobb once that he was on the point of taking Edith in his unloving embrace, and running away with her. But Mrs. Cobb saved him from this duncely possibility by saying:
"Be careful, Mr. Monroe, or you will do something desperate directly!"
Mr. Monroe quickly recovered himself and became a living sphynx again.
"Hah, Miss Edith," said Jasper Cobb, catching the trend of things Edithward, "now, I am jealous."