"Absence of marine saurians,"
he resumed glibly,
"Dinosaurs and Pterosaurs-so abundant in the-in the
Cretaceous-of Ammonites and Belemnites,"
he persisted-heroically. Hesitatingly, stumblingly, without a glimmer of understanding, his bewildered mind worried on and on, its entire mental energy concentrated on the single purpose of trying to pronounce the awful words.
"Of Rudistes, Inocerami-Tri-Trigonias,"
the horrible paragraph tortured on ...
"By the marked reduction in the-Brachiopods compared
with the now richly developed Gasteropods and-and
sinupalliate-Lamellibranchs,"-
it writhed and twisted before his dizzy eyes.
Every sentence was a struggle; more than one of the words he was forced to spell aloud just out of sheer self-defense; and always against Eve Edgarton's little intermittent nod of encouragement was balanced that hateful sniffing sound of surprise and contempt from the orchid table in the window.
Despairingly he skipped a few lines to the next unfamiliar words that met his eye.
"The Neozoic flora,"
he read,
"consists mainly of-of Angio-Angiosper-"
Still smiling, but distinctly wan around the edges of the smile, he slammed the handful of papers down on his knee. "If it really doesn't make any difference where we begin, Miss Eve," he said, "for Heaven's sake-let's begin somewhere else!"
"Oh-all right," crooned little Eve Edgarton.
Expeditiously Barton turned to another page, and another, and another. Wryly he tasted strange sentence after strange sentence. Then suddenly his whole wonderful face wreathed itself in smiles again.
"Three superfamilies of turtles,"
he began joyously. "Turtles! Ha!-I know turtles!" he proceeded with real triumph. "Why, that's the first word I've recognized in all this-this-er-this what I've been reading! Sure I know turtles!" he reiterated with increasing conviction. "Why, sure! Those-those slow-crawling, box-like affairs that-live in the mud and are used for soup and-er-combs," he continued blithely.
"The-very-same," nodded little Eve Edgarton soberly.
"Oh-Lordy!" groaned her father from the window.
"Oh, this is going to be lots better!" beamed Barton. "Now that I know what it's all about-"
"For goodness' sake," growled Edgarton from his table, "how do you people think I'm going to do any work with all this jabbering going on!"
Hesitatingly for a moment Barton glanced back over his shoulder at Edgarton, and then turned round again to probe Eve's preferences in the matter. As sluggishly determinate as two black turtles trailing along a white sand beach, her great dark eyes in her little pale face seemed headed suddenly toward some Far-Away Idea.
"Oh-go right on reading, Mr. Barton," nodded little Eve Edgarton.
"Three superfamilies of turtles,"
began Barton all over again.
"Three superfamilies of turtles-the-the Amphichelydia, the
Cryptodira, and the Tri-the-Tri-the
T-r-i-o-n-y-c-h-o-i-d-e-a,"
he spelled out laboriously.
With a vicious jerk of his chair Edgarton snatched up his papers and his orchids and started for the door.
[Illustration: "You're nice," he said. "I like you!"]
"When you people get all through this nonsense," he announced, "maybe you'll be kind enough to let me know! I shall be in the writing-room!" With satirical courtesy he bowed first to Eve, then to Barton, dallied an instant on the threshold to repeat both bows, and went out, slamming the door behind him.
"A nervous man, isn't he?" suggested Barton.
Gravely little Eve Edgarton considered the thought. "Trionychoidea," she prompted quite irrelevantly.
"Oh, yes-of course," conceded Barton. "But do you mind if I smoke?"
"No, I don't mind if you smoke," singsonged the girl.
With a palpable sigh of relief Barton lighted a cigarette. "You're nice," he said. "I like you!" Conscientiously then he resumed his reading.
"No-Pleurodira-have yet been found,"
he began.
"Yes-isn't that too bad?" sighed little Eve Edgarton.
"It doesn't matter personally to me," admitted Barton. Hastily he moved on to the next sentence.
"The Amphichelydia-are known there by only the genus Baena,"
he read.
"Two described species: B. undata and B. arenosa, to which was
added B. hebraica and B. ponderosa-"
Petulantly he slammed the whole handful of papers to the floor.
"Eve!" he stammered. "I can't stand it! I tell you-I just can't stand it! Take my attic if you want to! Or my cellar! Or my garage! Or anything else of mine in the world that you have any fancy for! But for Heaven's sake-"
With extraordinarily dilated eyes Eve Edgarton stared out at him from her white pillows.
"Why-why, if it makes you feel like that-just to read it," she reproached him mournfully, "how do you suppose it makes me feel to have to write it? All you have to do-is to read it," she said. "But I? I have to write it!"
"But-why do you have to write it?" gasped Barton.
Languidly her heavy lashes shadowed down across her cheeks again. "It's for the British consul at Nunko-Nono," she said. "It's some notes he asked me to make for him in London this last spring."
"But for mercy's sake-do you like to write things like that?" insisted Barton.
"Oh, no," drawled little Eve Edgarton. "But of course-if I marry him," she confided without the slightest flicker of emotion, "it's what I'll have to write-all the rest of my life."
"But-" stammered Barton. "For mercy's sake, do you want to marry him?" he asked quite bluntly.
"Oh, no," drawled little Eve Edgarton.
Impatiently Barton threw away his half-smoked cigarette and lighted a fresh one. "Then why?" he demanded.
"Oh, it's something Father invented," said little Eve Edgarton.
Altogether emphatically Barton pushed back his chair. "Well, I call it a shame!" he said. "For a nice live little girl like you to be packed off like so much baggage-to marry some great gray-bearded clout who hasn't got an idea in his head except-except-" squintingly he stared down at the scattered sheets on the floor-"except-'Amphichelydia,'" he asserted with some feeling.
"Yes-isn't it?" sighed little Eve Edgarton.
"For Heaven's sake!" said Barton. "Where is Nunko-Nono?"
"Nunko-Nono?" whispered little Eve Edgarton. "Where is it? Why, it's an island! In an ocean, you know! Rather a hot-green island! In rather a hot-blue-green ocean! Lots of green palms, you know, and rank, rough, green grass-and green bugs-and green butterflies-and green snakes. And a great crawling, crunching collar of white sand and hermit-crabs all around it. And then just a long, unbroken line of turquoise-colored waves. And then more turquoise-colored waves. And then more turquoise-colored waves. And then more turquoise-colored waves. And then-and then-"
"And then what?" worried Barton.
With a vaguely astonished lift of the eyebrows little Eve Edgarton met both question and questioner perfectly squarely. "Why-then-more turquoise-colored waves, of course," chanted little Eve Edgarton.
"It sounds rotten to me," confided Barton.
"It is," said little Eve Edgarton. "And, oh, I forgot to tell you: John Ellbertson is-sort of green, too. Geologists are apt to be, don't you think so?"
"I never saw one," admitted Barton without shame.
"If you'd like me to," said Eve, "I'll show you how the turquoise-colored waves sound-when they strike the hermit-crabs."
"Do!" urged Barton.
Listlessly the girl pushed back into her pillows, slid down a little farther into her blankets, and closed her eyes.
"Mmmmmmmmm," she began, "Mmm-mmmmmmm-Mmmmm-Mmmmmmm, W-h-i-s-h-h-h! Mmmmmmmmm-Mmmmmmmm-Mmmmmmmm-Mmmmmm-W-h-i-s-h-h-h!-Mmmmmmmm-Mmmmmmm-"
"After a while, of course, I think you might stop," suggested Barton a bit creepishly.
Again the big eyes opened at him with distinct surprise. "Why-why?" said Eve Edgarton. "It-never stops!"
"Oh, I say," frowned Barton, "I do feel awfully badly about your going away off to a place like that to live! Really!" he stammered.