Part 6 (1/2)
”There,” she drawled. ”There. There. There.”
Only the soft earthy thud that accompanied each ”There” pointed the slightest significance to the word. The first thud was a slim, queer, stone flagon of vodka. Wanly, like some far pinnacle on some far Russian fortress, its grim shape loomed in the sallow lantern light.
The second thud was a dust-colored basket of dates from some green-spotted Arabian desert. Vaguely its soft curving outline merged into shadow and turf. The third thud was a battered old drinking-cup--dully silver, mysteriously Chinese. The fourth thud was a big gla.s.s jar of frankly American beef. Familiarly, rea.s.suringly, its sleek sides glinted in the flickering flame.
”Supper,” announced little Eve Edgarton.
As tomboyishly as a miniature brigand she crawled forward again into the meager square of lantern-tinted earth and, yanking a revolver out of one boot-leg and a pair of scissors from the other, settled herself with una.s.sailable girlishness to jab the delicate scissors-points into the stubborn tin top of the meat jar.
As though the tin had been his own flesh the act goaded Barton half upright into the light--a brightly naked young Viking to the waist, a vaguely shadowed equestrian Fas.h.i.+on Plate to the feet.
”Well--I certainly never saw anybody like you before!” he glowered at her.
With equal gravity but infinitely more deliberation little Eve Edgarton returned the stare. ”I never saw anybody like you before, either,” she said enigmatically.
Barton winced back into the darkness. ”Oh, I say,” he stammered. ”I wish I had a coat! I feel like a--like a--”
”Why--why?” droned little Eve Edgarton perplexedly. Out from the yellow heart of the pansy-blackness her small, grave, gnomish face peered after him with pristine frankness. ”Why--why--I think you look--nice,” said little Eve Edgarton.
With a really desperate effort Barton tried to clothe himself in facetiousness, if in nothing else. ”Oh, very well,” he grinned feebly.
”If you don't mind--there's no special reason, I suppose, why I should.”
Vaguely, blurrishly, like a figure on the wrong side of a stained-gla.s.s window, he began to loom up again into the lantern light. There was no embarra.s.sment certainly about his hunger, nor any affectation at all connected with his thirst. Chokingly from the battered silver cup he gulped down the scorching vodka. Ravenously he attacked the salty meat, the sweet, cloying dates.
Watching him solemn-eyed above her own intermittent nibbles, the girl spoke out quite simply the thought that was uppermost in her mind.
”This supper'll come in mighty handy, won't it, if we have to be out here all night, Mr. Barton?”
”If we have to be out here--all night?” faltered Barton.
Oh, ye G.o.ds! If just their afternoon ride together had been hotel talk--as of course it was within five minutes after their departure--what would their midnight return be? Or rather their non-return? Already through his addled brain he heard the monotonous creak-creak of rocking-chair gossip, the sly jest of the smoking-room, the whispered excitement of the kitchen--all the sophisticated old worldlings hoping indifferently for the best, all the unsophisticated old prudes yearning ecstatically for the worst!
”If we have to stay out here all night?” he repeated wildly. ”Oh, what--oh, what will your father say, Miss Edgarton?”
”What will Father say?” drawled little Eve Edgarton. Thuddingly she set down the empty beef-jar. ”Oh, Father'll say: What in creation is Eve out trying to save to-night? A dog? A cat? A three-legged deer?”
”Well, what do you expect to save?” quizzed Barton a bit tartly.
”Just--you,” acknowledged little Eve Edgarton without enthusiasm. ”And isn't it funny,” she confided placidly, ”that I've never yet succeeded in saving anything that I could take home with me--and keep! That's the trouble with boarding!”
In a vague, gold-colored flicker of appeal her lifted face flared out again into Barton's darkness. Too fugitive to be called a smile, a tremor of reminiscence went scudding across her mouth before the brooding shadow of her old slouch hat blotted out her features again.
”In India once,” persisted the dreary little voice, ”in India once, when Father and I were going into the mountains for the summer, there was a--there was a sort of fakir at one of the railway stations doing tricks with a crippled tiger-cub--a tiger-cub with a shot-off paw. And when Father wasn't looking I got off the train and went back--and I followed that fakir two days till he just naturally had to sell me the tiger-cub; he couldn't exactly have an Englishwoman following him indefinitely, you know. And I took the tiger-cub back with me to Father and he was very cunning--but--” Languorously the speech trailed off into indistinctness. ”But the people at the hotel were--were indifferent to him,” she rallied whisperingly. ”And I had to let him go.”
”You got off a train? In India? Alone?” snapped Barton. ”And went following a dirty, sneaking fakir for two days? Well, of all the crazy--indiscreet--”
”Indiscreet?” mused little Eve Edgarton. Again out of the murky blackness her tilted chin caught up the flare of yellow lantern-light.
”Indiscreet?” she repeated monotonously. ”Who? I?”
”Yes--you,” grunted Barton. ”Traipsing 'round all alone--after--”
”But I never am alone, Mr. Barton,” protested the mild little voice.
”You see I always have the extra saddle, the extra railway ticket, the extra what-ever-it-is. And--and--” Caressingly a little gold-tipped hand reached out through the shadows and patted something indistinctly metallic. ”My mother's memory? My father's revolver?” she drawled.