Dully her voice rose to its monotone:  “But I don’t suppose—­we shall live in a—­house,” she moaned apathetically.  “At the best it will probably be only a musty room or two up over the consulate—­and more likely than not it won’t be anything at all except a nipa hut and a typewriter-table.”

As if some mote of dust disturbed her, suddenly she rubbed the knuckles of one hand across her eyes.  “But maybe we’ll have—­daughters,” she persisted undauntedly.  “And maybe they’ll have houses!”

“Oh, shucks!” said Barton uneasily.  “A—­a house isn’t so much!”

“It—­isn’t?” asked little Eve Edgarton incredulously.  “Why—­why—­you don’t mean—­”

“Don’t mean—­what?” puzzled Barton.

“Do—­you—­live—­in—­a—­house?” asked little Eve Edgarton abruptly.  Her hands were suddenly quiet in her lap, her tousled head cocked ever so slightly to one side, her sluggish eyes incredibly dilated.

“Why, of course I live in a house,” laughed Barton.

“O—­h,” breathed little Eve Edgarton.  “Re—­ally?  It must be wonderful.”  Wiltingly her eyes, her hands, drooped back to her scrap-book again.  “In—­all—­my—­life,” she resumed monotonously, “I’ve never spent a single night—­in a real house.”

“What?” questioned Barton.

“Oh, of course,” explained the girl dully, “of course I’ve spent no end of nights in hotels and camps and huts and trains and steamers and—­But—­What color is your house?” she asked casually.

“Why, brown, I guess,” said Barton.

“Brown, you ’guess’?” whispered the girl pitifully.  “Don’t you—­know?”

“No, I wouldn’t exactly like to swear to it,” grinned Barton a bit sheepishly.

Again the girl’s eyes lifted just a bit over-intently from the work in her lap.

“What color is the wall-paper—­in your own room?” she asked casually.  “Is it—­is it a—­dear pinkie-posie sort of effect?  Or just plain—­shaded stripes?”

“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.