"I have forgotten how to hurry, after these delicious weeks here," Edith answered, leaning back in her rustic chair. "I think it agrees with me to be deliberate, as Marian is. I am going to cultivate it."
"You are deliberate with me, all right," he declared. "I don't quite understand myself nowadays. Usually when I find that I am making little progress along one line I shift onto another, but now I seem perfectly contented to sit back and watch you act your part. That shows that there's something deeper in all this, doesn't it?"
"You might shift back to Merry," she replied calmly.
"No," he said with decision; "I've learned the rules now, and you don't catch me revoking.—Tell me, if you don't like me, why do you let me hang around like this, and if you do like me, what's the use of putting me off so long?"
"There are loads of people I don't even take the trouble to like or dislike, whom I 'put off,' as you call it."
"Do you really dislike me?"
"No," Edith drawled slowly, as if deliberating; "I can't say that. In fact I think I rather like you—in spots."
Cosden leaned forward eagerly. "Isn't it stronger than that?" he demanded.
"I can't say it is," she replied, her voice manifesting the same interest which she might show if he had asked any other commonplace question; "but don't get down on your knees now, for here comes the tea and I loathe demonstration before servants."
"All right," Cosden said with resignation but without losing his cheerfulness; "you don't discourage me a bit. I guess counsel is just collecting a little extra fee for that break in Bermuda. I'll wait."