“Take them off!”
“Wh—wh—why should I?”
“So that you can see me better.”
“I don’t want to see you better.”
“Yes, you do. I’m much more interesting than a scarab.”
“But I know about scarabs and I don’t know about—about—”
“Girls. So one might suspect. Do you know what I’m doing, Mr. Beetle Man?”
“N-n-no.”
“I’m flirting with you. I never flirted with a scientific person before. It’s awfully one-sided, difficult, uphill work.”
This last was all but drowned out in his flood of panicky instructions, from which she disentangled such phrases as “first to left”—“dry river-bed-hundred-yards”—“dead tree—can’t miss it.”