She raised her eyes for a moment but she shook her head.
"I am afraid that it doesn't make any difference, does it?
"Why not? It makes all the difference," he insisted.
"My dear Mr. Burton," she expostulated, making room for him to sit down beside her, "I cannot possibly allow you to make love to me because your wife refuses to swallow a bean!"
"But she threw them out of the window!" he persisted. "She understood quite well what she was doing. Her action was entirely symbolical. She declared for Garden Green and the vulgar life."
For a girl who lived in an old-fashioned garden, and who seemed herself to be part of a fairy story, Edith certainly took a practical view of the situation.
"I am afraid," she murmured, "that the Divorce Courts have no jurisdiction over your case. You are therefore a married man, and likely to continue a married man. I cannot possibly allow you to hold my hand."
His head swam for a moment. She was very alluring with her pale face set in its clouds of golden hair, her faintly wrinkled forehead, her bewitchingly regretful smile--regretful, yet in a sense provocative.
"Naturally," she replied. "The question is--" She paused and looked intently at the tip of her slipper. It was very small and very pointed and it was quite impossible to ignore the fact that she had a remarkably pretty foot and that she wore white silk stockings. Burton had never known any one before who wore white silk stockings.
"I am very much in love with you," he repeated. "I cannot help it. It is not my fault--that is to say, it is as much your fault as it is mine."
"Is it? Well, what are you going to do about it?"
"I am going to take you down to the orchard, through the little gate, and across the plank into the hayfield," he announced, boldly. "I am going to sit with you under the oak tree, where we can just catch the view of the moor through the dip in the hills. We will lean back and watch the clouds--those little white, fleecy, broken-off pieces--and I will tell you fairy stories. We shall be quite alone there and perhaps you will let me hold your hand."
She shook her head, gently but very firmly. "Such things are impossible."
"Because you have a wife, and because--I had really quite forgotten to mention it before, but as a matter of fact I am half engaged to someone myself."