"Why, I'm sure I don't remember," acknowledged Barton worriedly. "Why, it's just paper, you know-paper," he floundered helplessly. "Red, green, brown, white-maybe it's white," he asserted experimentally. "Oh, for goodness' sake-how should I know!" he collapsed at last. "When my sisters were home from Europe last year, they fixed the whole blooming place over for-some kind of a party. But I don't know that I ever specially noticed just what it was that they did to it. Oh, it's all right, you know!" he attested with some emphasis. "Oh, it's all right enough-early Jacobean, or something like that-'perfectly corking,' everybody calls it! But it's so everlasting big, and it costs so much to run it, and I've lost such a wicked lot of money this year, that I'm not going to keep it after this autumn-if my sisters ever send me their Paris address so I'll know what to do with their things."
Frowningly little Eve Edgarton bent forward.
"'Some kind of a party?'" she repeated in unconscious mimicry. "You mean you gave a party? A real Christian party? As recently as last winter? And you can't even remember what kind of a party it was?" Something in her slender brown throat fluttered ever so slightly. "Why, I've never even been to a Christian party-in all my life!" she said. "Though I can dance in every language of Asia!
"And you've got sisters?" she stammered. "Live silk-and-muslin sisters? And you don't even know where they are? Why, I've never even had a girl friend in all my life!"
Incredulously she lifted her puzzled eyes to his. "And you've got a house?" she faltered. "And you're not going to keep it? A real-truly house? And you don't even know what color it is? You don't even know what color your own room is? And I know the name of every house-paint there is in the world," she muttered, "and the name of every wall-paper there is in the world, and the name of every carpet, and the name of every curtain, and the name of-everything. And I haven't got any house at all-"
Then startlingly, without the slightest warning, she pitched forward suddenly on her face and lay clutching into the turf-a little dust-colored wisp of a boyish figure sobbing its starved heart out against a dust-colored earth.
"Why-what's the matter!" gasped Barton. "Why!-Why-Kid!" Very laboriously with his numbed hands, with his strange, unresponsive legs, he edged himself forward a little till he could just reach her shoulder. "Why-Kid!" he patted her rather clumsily. "Why, Kid-do you mean-"
Slowly through the darkness Eve Edgarton came crawling to his side. Solemnly she lifted her eyes to Barton's. "I'll tell you something that Mother told me," she murmured. "This is it: 'Your father is the most wonderful man that ever lived,' my mother whispered to me quite distinctly. 'But he'll never make any home for you-except in his arms; and that is plenty Home-Enough for a wife-but not nearly Home-Enough for a daughter! And-and-"
"Why, you say it as if you knew it by heart," interrupted Barton.
"Why, of course I know it by heart!" cried little Eve Edgarton almost eagerly. "My mother whispered it to me, I tell you! The things that people shout at you-you forget in half a night. But the things that people whisper to you, you remember to your dying day!"
"If I whisper something to you," said Barton quite impulsively, "will you promise to remember it to your dying day?"
"Oh, yes, Mr. Barton," droned little Eve Edgarton.
Abruptly Barton reached out and tilted her chin up whitely toward him. "In this light," he whispered, "with your hat pushed back like-that!-and your hair fluffed up like-that!-and the little laugh in your eyes!-and the flush!-and the quiver!-you look like an-elf! A bronze and gold elf! You're wonderful! You're magical! You ought always to dress like that! Somebody ought to tell you about it! Woodsy, storm-colored clothes with little quick glints of light in them! Paquin or some of those people could make you famous!"
As spontaneously as he had touched her he jerked his hand away, and, snatching up the lantern, flashed it bluntly on her astonished face.
For one brief instant her hand went creeping up to the tip of her chin. Then very soberly, like a child with a lesson, she began to repeat Barton's impulsive phrases.
"'In this light,'" she droned, "'with your hat pushed back like that-and your hair fluffed up like that-and the-the-'" More unexpectedly then than anything that could possibly have happened she burst out laughing-a little low, giggly, school-girlish sort of laugh. "Oh, that's easy to remember!" she announced. Then, all one narrow black silhouette again, she crouched down into the semi-darkness.
"For a lady," she resumed listlessly, "who rode side-saddle and really enjoyed hiking 'round all over the sticky face of the globe, my mother certainly did guess pretty keenly just how things were going to be with me. I'll tell you what she said to sustain me," she repeated dreamily, "'Any foolish woman can keep house, but the woman who travels with your father has got to be able to keep the whole wide world for him! It's nations that you'll have to put to bed! And suns and moons and stars that you'll have to keep scoured and bright! But with the whole green earth for your carpet, and shining heaven for your roof-tree, and God Himself for your landlord, now wouldn't you be a fool, if you weren't quite satisfied?'"
"'If-you-weren't-quite satisfied,'" finished Barton mumblingly.
Little Eve Edgarton lifted her great eyes, soft with sorrow, sharp with tears, almost defiantly to Barton's.
"That's-what-Mother said," she faltered. "But all the same-I'd RATHER HAVE A HOUSE!"
"Why, you poor kid!" said Barton. "You ought to have a house! It's a shame! It's a beastly shame! It's a-"
Very softly in the darkness his hand grazed hers.
"Did you touch my hand on purpose, or just accidentally?" asked Eve Edgarton, without a flicker of expression on her upturned, gold-colored face.
"Why, I'm sure I don't know," laughed Barton. "Maybe-maybe it was a little of each."
With absolute gravity little Eve Edgarton kept right on staring at him. "I don't know whether I should ever specially like you-or not, Mr. Barton," she drawled. "But you are certainly very beautiful!"
"Oh, I say!" cried Barton wretchedly. With a really desperate effort he struggled almost to his feet, tottered for an instant, and then came sagging down to the soft earth again-a great, sprawling, spineless heap, at little Eve Edgarton's feet.
Unflinchingly, as if her wrists were built of steel wires, the girl jumped up and pulled and tugged and yanked his almost dead weight into a sitting posture again.
"My! But you're chock-full of lightning!" she commiserated with him.
Out of the utter rage and mortification of his helplessness Barton could almost have cursed her for her sympathy. Then suddenly, without warning, a little gasp of sheer tenderness escaped him.
"Eve Edgarton," he stammered, "you're-a-brick! You-you must have been invented just for the sole purpose of saving people's lives. Oh, you've saved mine all right!" he acknowledged soberly. "And all this black, blasted night you've nursed me-and fed me-and jollied me-without a whimper about yourself-without-a-" Impulsively he reached out his numb-palmed hand to her, and her own hand came so cold to it that it might have been the caress of one ghost to another. "Eve Edgarton," he reiterated, "I tell you-you're a brick! And I'm a fool-and a slob-and a mutt-head-even when I'm not chock-full of lightning, as you call it! But if there's ever anything I can do for you!"
"What did you say?" muttered little Eve Edgarton.
"I said you were a brick!" repeated Barton a bit irritably.
"Oh, no, I didn't mean-that," mused the girl. "But what was the-last thing you said?"
"Oh!" grinned Barton more cheerfully. "I said-if there was ever anything that I could do for you, anything-"
"Would you rent me your attic?" asked little Eve Edgarton.
"Would I rent you my attic?" stammered Barton. "Why in the world should you want to hire my attic?"