The professor turned unsympathetically away.

“You know perfectly well how to keep out of it,” he said, making his way toward the house.

“Between you both,” Edith continued, “I really am having rather a hard time.  This is the last straw of all.  I am deprived of my young man now, just to please you.”

“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 fiance.”

“If there is anything an unworthy substitute can do,” Burton began,—­

“Nice girls do not accept substitutes for their fiances,” Edith interrupted, ruthlessly.  “I am a very nice girl indeed.  I think that you are very lazy this afternoon.  You would be better employed at work than in talking nonsense.”

Burton sighed.

“I tried to work this morning,” he declared.  “I gave up simply because I found myself thinking of you all the time.  Genius is so susceptible to diversions.  This afternoon I couldn’t settle down because I was wondering all the time whether you were wearing blue linen or white muslin.  I just looked out of the window to see—­you were asleep in the hammock . . . you witch!” he murmured softly.  “How could I keep sane and collected!  How could I write about anybody or anything in the world except you!  The wind was blowing those little strands of hair over your face.  Your left arm was hanging down—­so; why is an arm such a graceful thing, I wonder?  Your left knee was drawn up—­you had been supporting a book against it and—­”

“I don’t want to hear another word,” Edith protested quickly.

He sighed.

“It took me about thirty seconds to get down,” he murmured.  “You hadn’t moved.”

“Shall we have tea out here or in the study?” Edith asked.

“Anywhere so long as we escape from this,” Burton replied, gazing across the lawn.  “What is it?”

A man was making his way from the house towards them, a man who certainly presented a somewhat singular appearance.  He was wearing a long linen duster, a motor-cap which came over his ears, and a pair of goggles which he was busy removing.  Edith swung herself on to her feet.  Considering her late laments, the dismay in her tone was a little astonishing.