"They have been going on for months like that; at least, it seems months. And never getting any nearer! And then when you talk to them about each other, they speak of each other respectfully! They really do. He says she is a shrewd observer of human nature, and she says he appears to have had most interesting experiences. Indeed, I'm not exaggerating."
"My dear Gwen, what do you expect?"
"Oh—you know! You're only making believe. Why, when I said to him that she had been a strikingly pretty girl in her young days, and had refused no end of offers of marriage, he ... What do you say?"
"I said 'not no end.'"
"Well—of course not! But I thought it as well to say so."
"And what did he say to that?"
"He got his eyeglass right to look at her, as if he had never seen her before, and came to a critical decision:—'Ye-es, yes, yes—so I should have imagined. Quite so!' It amounted to acquiescing in her having gone off, and was distinctly rude. She's better than that when I speak to her about him certainly. This morning she said he smoked too many cigars."
"How absurd you are, Gwen! Why was that better?"
"H'm—it's a little difficult to say! But it is better, distinctly. There—they've heard us coming!"
"Why?"