"It is hot," conceded Eve apologetically.
"In fact," snapped Barton, "I think it"s the hottest day I ever knew!"
"Really?" droned Eve Edgarton.
"Really!" snapped Barton.
It must have been almost half an hour before anybody spoke again.
Then, "Pretty hot, isn"t it?" Barton began all over again.
"Yes," said Eve Edgarton.
"In fact," hissed Barton through clenched teeth, "in fact I know it"s the hottest day I ever knew!"
"Really?" droned Eve Edgarton.
"Really!" choked Barton.
Creakily under their hot, chafing saddles the sweltering roans lurched off suddenly through a great snarl of bushes into a fern-shaded spring-hole and stood ankle-deep in the boggy gra.s.s, guzzling noisily at food and drink, with the chunky gray crowding greedily against first one rider and then the other.
Quite against all intention Barton groaned aloud. His sun-scorched eyes seemed fairly shriveling with the glare. His wilted linen collar slopped like a stale poultice around his tortured neck. In his sticky fingers the bridle-rein itched like so much poisoned ribbon.
Reaching up one small hand to drag the soft flannel collar of her shirt a little farther down from her slim throat, Eve Edgarton rested her chin on her knuckles for an instant and surveyed him plaintively.
"Aren"t--we--having--an--awful time?" she whispered.
Even then if she had looked woman-y, girl-y, even remotely, affectedly feminine, Barton would doubtless have floundered heroically through some protesting lie. But to the frank, blunt, little-boyishness of her he succ.u.mbed suddenly with a beatific grin of relief. "Yes, we certainly are!" he acknowledged ruthlessly.
"And what good is it?" questioned the girl most unexpectedly.
"Not any good!" grunted Barton.
"To any one?" persisted the girl.
"Not to any one!" exploded Barton.
With an odd little gasp of joy the girl reached out dartingly and touched Barton on his sleeve. Her face was suddenly eager, active, transcendently vital.
"Then oh--won"t you please--please--turn round--and go home--and leave me alone?" she pleaded astonishingly.
"Turn round and go home?" stammered Barton.
The touch on his sleeve quickened a little. "Oh, yes--please, Mr.
Barton!" insisted the tremulous voice.
"You--you mean I"m in your way?" stammered Barton.
Very gravely the girl nodded her head. "Oh, yes, Mr. Barton--you"re terribly in my way," she acknowledged quite frankly.
"Good Heavens," thought Barton, "is there a man in this? Is it a tryst? Well, of all things!"
Jerkily he began to back his horse out of the spring-hole, back--back--back through the intricate, overgrown pathway of flapping leaves and sharp, scratchy twigs.
"I am very sorry, Miss Edgarton, to have forced my presence on you so!" he murmured ironically.
"Oh, it isn"t just you!" said little Eve Edgarton quite frankly. "It"s all Father"s friends." Almost threateningly as she spoke she jerked up her own horse"s drizzling mouth and rode right at Barton as if to force him back even faster through the great snarl of underbrush. "I hate clever people!" she a.s.serted pa.s.sionately. "I hate them--hate them--hate them! I hate all Father"s clever friends! I hate--"
"But you see I"m not clever," grinned Barton in spite of himself. "Oh, not clever at all," he reiterated with some grimness as an alder branch slapped him stingingly across one eye. "Indeed--" he dodged and ducked and floundered, still backing, backing, everlastingly backing--"indeed, your father has spent quite a lot of his valuable time this afternoon a.s.suring me--and rea.s.suring me--that--that I"m altogether a fool!"
Unrelentingly little Eve Edgarton"s horse kept right on forcing him back--back--back.
"But if you"re not one of Father"s clever friends--who are you?" she demanded perplexedly. "And why did you insist so on riding with me this afternoon?" she cried accusingly.
"I didn"t exactly--insist," grinned Barton with a flush of guilt. The flush of guilt added to the flush of heat made him look suddenly very confused.
Across Eve Edgarton"s thin little face the flash of temper faded instantly into mere sulky ennui again.
"Oh, dear--oh, dear," she droned. "You--you didn"t want to marry me, did you?"
Just for one mad, panic-stricken second the whole world seemed to turn black before Barton"s eyes. His heart stopped beating. His ear-drums cracked. Then suddenly, astonishingly, he found himself grinning into that honest little face, and answering comfortably:
"Why, no, Miss Edgarton, I hadn"t the slightest idea in the world of wanting to marry you."
"Thank G.o.d for that!" gasped little Eve Edgarton. "So many of Father"s friends do want to marry me," she confided plaintively, still driving Barton back through that horrid scratchy thicket. "I"m so rich, you see," she confided with equal simplicity, "and I know so much--there"s almost always somebody in Petrozavodsk or Broken Hill or Bashukulumbwe who wants to marry me."
"In--where?" stammered Barton.
"Why--in Russia!" said little Eve Edgarton with some surprise. "And Australia! And Africa! Were you never there?"
"I"ve been in Jersey City," babbled Barton with a desperate attempt at facetiousness.
"I was never there!" admitted little Eve Edgarton regretfully.
Vehemently with one hand she lunged forward and tried with her tiny open palm to push Barton"s horse a trifle faster back through the intricate thicket. Then once in the open again she drew herself up with an absurd air of dignity and finality and bowed him from her presence.
"Good-by, Mr. Barton," she said. "Good-by, Mr. Barton."
"But Miss Edgarton--" stammered Barton perplexedly. Whatever his own personal joy and relief might be, the surrounding country nevertheless was exceedingly wild, and the girl an extravagantly long distance from home. "But Miss Edgarton--" he began all over again.
"Good-by, Mr. Barton! And thank you for going home!" she added conscientiously.
"But what will I tell your father?" worried Barton.
"Oh--hang Father," drawled the indifferent little voice.
"But the extra horse?" argued Barton with increasing perplexity. "The gray? If you"ve got some date up your sleeve, don"t you want me to take the gray home with me, and get him out of your way?"
With sluggish resentment little Eve Edgarton lifted her eyes to his.
"What would the gray go home with you for?" she asked tersely. "Why, how silly! Why, it"s my--mother"s horse! That is, we call it my mother"s horse," she hastened to explain. "My mother"s dead, you know.