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.