"But if you're not one of Father's clever friends—who are you?" she demanded perplexedly. "And why did you insist so on riding with me this afternoon?" she cried accusingly.
"I didn't exactly—insist," grinned Barton with a flush of guilt. The flush of guilt added to the flush of heat made him look suddenly very confused.
Across Eve Edgarton's thin little face the flash of temper faded instantly into mere sulky ennui again.
"Oh, dear—oh, dear," she droned. "You—you didn't want to marry me, did you?"
Just for one mad, panic-stricken second the whole world seemed to turn black before Barton's eyes. His heart stopped beating. His ear-drums cracked. Then suddenly, astonishingly, he found himself grinning into that honest little face, and answering comfortably:
"Why, no, Miss Edgarton, I hadn't the slightest idea in the world of wanting to marry you."
"Thank God for that!" gasped little Eve Edgarton. "So many of Father's friends do want to marry me," she confided plaintively, still driving Barton back through that horrid scratchy thicket. "I'm so rich, you see," she confided with equal simplicity, "and I know so much—there's almost always somebody in Petrozavodsk or Broken Hill or Bashukulumbwe who wants to marry me."
"In—where?" stammered Barton.
"Why—in Russia!" said little Eve Edgarton with some surprise. "And Australia! And Africa! Were you never there?"
"I've been in Jersey City," babbled Barton with a desperate attempt at facetiousness.