From the farther side of the room the sound of a creaking board smote almost instantly upon their ears.
"Any time that you people want me," suggested Edgarton"s icy voice, "I am standing here--in about the middle of the floor!"
With a jerk of dismay Barton wheeled around to face him. But it was little Eve Edgarton herself who found her tongue first.
"Oh, Father dear--I have been perfectly wise!" she hastened to a.s.sure him. "Almost at once, Father, I told him that I liked him, so that if he really were the dreadful kind of young man you were warning me about, he would eliminate himself from my horizon--immediately--in his wicked pursuit of--some other lady! Oh, he did run, Father!" she confessed in the first red blush of her life. "Oh, he did--run, Father, but it was--almost directly--toward me!"
"Eh?" snapped Edgarton.
Then in a divine effrontery, half impudence and half humility, Barton stepped out into the middle of the room, and proffered his strong, firm young hand to the older man.
"You told me," he grinned, "to rummage around until I discovered a Real Treasure? Well, I didn"t have to do it! It was the Treasure, it seems, who discovered me!"
Then suddenly into his fine young eyes flared up the first glint of his new-born soul.
"Your daughter, sir," said Barton, "is the most beautiful woman in the world! As you suggested to me, I have found out what she is interested in--She is interested in--ME!"