"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.