“Well, if little Miss Edgarton is—­little Miss Edgarton,” he babbled idiotically, “who in creation—­are you?”

“Who am I?” stammered the Older Man perplexedly.  As if the question really worried him, he sagged back a trifle against the sustaining wall of the house, and stood with his hands thrust deep in his pockets once more.  “Who am I?” he repeated blandly.  Again one eyebrow lifted.  Again one side of his thin-lipped mouth twitched ever so slightly to the right.  “Why, I’m just a man, Mr. Barton,” he grinned very faintly, “who travels all over the world for the sake of whatever amusement he can get out of it.  And some afternoons, of course, I get a good deal more amusement out of it—­than I do others.  Eh?”

Furiously the red blood mounted into the Young Man’s cheeks.  “Oh, I say, Edgarton!” he pleaded.  Mirthlessly, wretchedly, a grin began to spread over his face.  “Oh, I say!” he faltered.  “I am a fool!”

The Older Man threw back his head and started to laugh.

[Illustration:  ‘I am riding,’ she murmured almost inaudibly]

At the first cackling syllable of the laugh, with appalling fatefulness Eve Edgarton herself loomed suddenly on the scene, in her old slouch hat, her gray flannel shirt, her weather-beaten khaki Norfolk and riding-breeches, looking for all the world like an extraordinarily slim, extraordinarily shabby little boy just starting out to play.  Up from the top of one riding-boot the butt of a revolver protruded slightly.

With her heavy black eyelashes shadowing somberly down across her olive-tinted cheeks, she passed Barton as if she did not even see him and went directly to her father.

“I am riding,” she murmured almost inaudibly.

“In this heat?” groaned her father.

“In this heat,” echoed Eve Edgarton.

“There will surely be a thunder-storm,” protested her father.

“There will surely be a thunder-storm,” acquiesced Eve Edgarton.

Without further parleying she turned and strolled off again.

Just for an instant the Older Man’s glance followed her.  Just for an instant with quizzically twisted eyebrows his glance flashed back sardonically to Barton’s suffering face.  Then very leisurely he began to laugh again.

But right in the middle of the laugh—­as if something infinitely funnier than a joke had smitten him suddenly—­he stopped short, with one eyebrow stranded half-way up his forehead.

“Eve!” he called sharply.  “Eve!  Come back here a minute!”

Very laggingly from around the piazza corner the girl reappeared.

“Eve,” said her father quite abruptly, “this is Mr. Barton!  Mr. Barton, this is my daughter!”

Listlessly the girl came forward and proffered her hand to the Younger Man.  It was a very little hand.  More than that, it was an exceedingly cold little hand.

“How do you do, sir?” she murmured almost inaudibly.