s into the older man's astonished hands.

"For me?" questioned Edgarton icily.

"Why, yes--certainly!" beamed Barton. "Orchids, you know! Hothouse
orchids!" he explained painstakingly.

"So I--judged," admitted Edgarton. With extreme distaste he began to
untie the soft flimsy lavender ribbon that encompassed them. "In their
native state, you know," he confided, "one very seldom finds them
growing with--sashes on them." From her nest of cushions across the
room little Eve Edgarton loomed up suddenly into definite prominence.

"What did you bring me, Mr. Barton?" she asked.

"Why, Eve!" cried her father. "Why, Eve, you astonish me! Why, I'm
surprised at you! Why--what do you mean?"

The girl sagged back into her cushions. "Oh, Father," she faltered,
"don't you know--anything? That was just 'small talk.'"

With perfunctory courtesy Edgarton turned to young Barton. "Pray be
seated," he said; "take--take a chair."

It was the chair closest to little Eve Edgarton that Barton took.
"How do you do, Miss Edgarton?" he ventured.

"How do you do, Mr. Barton?" said little Eve Edgarton.

From the splashy wash-stand somewhere beyond them, they heard Edgarton
fussing with the orchids and mumbling vague Latin imprecations--or
endearments--over them. A trifle surreptitiously Barton smiled at Eve.
A trifle surreptitiously Eve smiled back at Barton.

In this perfectly amiable exchange of smiles the girl reached up
suddenly to the sides of her head. "Is my--is my bandage on straight?"
she asked worriedly.

"Why, no," admitted Barton; "it ought not to be, ought it?"

Again for no special reason whatsoever they both smiled.

"Oh, I say," stammered Barton. "How you can dance!"

Across the girl's olive cheeks her heavy eyelashes shadowed down like
a fringe of black ferns. "Yes--how I can dance," she murmured almost
inaudibly.

"Why didn't you let anybody know?" demanded Barton.

"Yes--why didn't I let anybody know?" repeated the girl in an utter
panic of bashfulness.

"Oh, I say," whispered Barton, "won't you even look at me?"

Mechanically the girl opened her eyes and stared at him fixedly until
his own eyes fell.

"Eve!" called her father sharply from the next room, "where in
creation is my data concerning North American orchids?"

"In my steamer-trunk," began the girl. "On the left hand side. Tucked
in between your riding-boots and my best hat."

"O--h," called her father.

Barton edged forward in his chair and