he spelled out laboriously.
With a vicious jerk of his chair Edgarton s.n.a.t.c.hed up his papers and his orchids and started for the door.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "You"re nice," he said. "I like you!"]
"When you people get all through this nonsense," he announced, "maybe you"ll be kind enough to let me know! I shall be in the writing-room!" With satirical courtesy he bowed first to Eve, then to Barton, dallied an instant on the threshold to repeat both bows, and went out, slamming the door behind him.
"A nervous man, isn"t he?" suggested Barton.
Gravely little Eve Edgarton considered the thought. "Trionychoidea,"
she prompted quite irrelevantly.
"Oh, yes--of course," conceded Barton. "But do you mind if I smoke?"
"No, I don"t mind if you smoke," singsonged the girl.
With a palpable sigh of relief Barton lighted a cigarette. "You"re nice," he said. "I like you!" Conscientiously then he resumed his reading.
"No--Pleurodira--have yet been found,"
he began.
"Yes--isn"t that too bad?" sighed little Eve Edgarton.
"It doesn"t matter personally to me," admitted Barton. Hastily he moved on to the next sentence.
"The Amphichelydia--are known there by only the genus Baena,"
he read.
"Two described species: B. undata and B. arenosa, to which was added B. hebraica and B. ponderosa--"
Petulantly he slammed the whole handful of papers to the floor.
"Eve!" he stammered. "I can"t stand it! I tell you--I just can"t stand it! Take my attic if you want to! Or my cellar! Or my garage! Or anything else of mine in the world that you have any fancy for! But for Heaven"s sake--"
With extraordinarily dilated eyes Eve Edgarton stared out at him from her white pillows.
"Why--why, if it makes you feel like that--just to read it," she reproached him mournfully, "how do you suppose it makes me feel to have to write it? All you have to do--is to read it," she said. "But I? I have to write it!"
"But--why do you have to write it?" gasped Barton.
Languidly her heavy lashes shadowed down across her cheeks again.
"It"s for the British consul at Nunko-Nono," she said. "It"s some notes he asked me to make for him in London this last spring."
"But for mercy"s sake--do you like to write things like that?"
insisted Barton.
"Oh, no," drawled little Eve Edgarton. "But of course--if I marry him," she confided without the slightest flicker of emotion, "it"s what I"ll have to write--all the rest of my life."
"But--" stammered Barton. "For mercy"s sake, do you want to marry him?" he asked quite bluntly.
"Oh, no," drawled little Eve Edgarton.
Impatiently Barton threw away his half-smoked cigarette and lighted a fresh one. "Then why?" he demanded.
"Oh, it"s something Father invented," said little Eve Edgarton.
Altogether emphatically Barton pushed back his chair. "Well, I call it a shame!" he said. "For a nice live little girl like you to be packed off like so much baggage--to marry some great gray-bearded clout who hasn"t got an idea in his head except--except--"
squintingly he stared down at the scattered sheets on the floor--"except--"Amphichelydia,"" he a.s.serted with some feeling.
"Yes--isn"t it?" sighed little Eve Edgarton.
"For Heaven"s sake!" said Barton. "Where is Nunko-Nono?"
"Nunko-Nono?" whispered little Eve Edgarton. "Where is it? Why, it"s an island! In an ocean, you know! Rather a hot--green island! In rather a hot--blue-green ocean! Lots of green palms, you know, and rank, rough, green gra.s.s--and green bugs--and green b.u.t.terflies--and green snakes. And a great crawling, crunching collar of white sand and hermit-crabs all around it. And then just a long, unbroken line of turquoise-colored waves. And then more turquoise-colored waves. And then more turquoise-colored waves. And then more turquoise-colored waves. And then--and then--"
"And then what?" worried Barton.
With a vaguely astonished lift of the eyebrows little Eve Edgarton met both question and questioner perfectly squarely. "Why--then--more turquoise-colored waves, of course," chanted little Eve Edgarton.
"It sounds rotten to me," confided Barton.
"It is," said little Eve Edgarton. "And, oh, I forgot to tell you: John Ellbertson is--sort of green, too. Geologists are apt to be, don"t you think so?"
"I never saw one," admitted Barton without shame.
"If you"d like me to," said Eve, "I"ll show you how the turquoise-colored waves sound--when they strike the hermit-crabs."
"Do!" urged Barton.
Listlessly the girl pushed back into her pillows, slid down a little farther into her blankets, and closed her eyes.
"Mmmmmmmmm," she began, "Mmm-mmmmmmm--Mmmmm--Mmmmmmm, W-h-i-s-h-h-h!
Mmmmmmmmm--Mmmmmmmm--Mmmmmmmm--Mmmmmm--W-h-i-s-h-h-h!--Mmmmmmmm--Mmmmmmm--"
"After a while, of course, I think you might stop," suggested Barton a bit creepishly.
Again the big eyes opened at him with distinct surprise. "Why--why?"
said Eve Edgarton. "It--never stops!"
"Oh, I say," frowned Barton, "I do feel awfully badly about your going away off to a place like that to live! Really!" he stammered.
"We"re going--Thursday," said little Eve Edgarton.
"THURSDAY?" cried Barton. For some inexplainable reason the whole idea struck him suddenly as offensive, distinctly offensive, as if Fate, the impatient waiter, had s.n.a.t.c.hed away a yet untasted plate.
"Why--why, Eve!" he protested, "why, we"re only just beginning to get acquainted."