Part 6 (2/2)
”Why, what better company could any girl have? Indiscreet?” Slowly the tip of her little nose tilted up into the light. ”Why, down in the Transvaal--two years ago,” she explained painstakingly, ”why, down in the Transvaal--two years ago--they called me the best-chaperoned girl in Africa. Indiscreet? Why, Mr. Barton, I never even saw an indiscreet woman in all my life. Men, of course, are indiscreet sometimes,” she conceded conscientiously. ”Down in the Transvaal two years ago, I had to shoot up a couple of men for being a little bit indiscreet, but--”
In one jerk Barton raised himself to a sitting posture.
”You 'shot up' a couple of men?” he demanded peremptorily.
Through the crook of a mud-smeared elbow shoving back the sodden brim of her hat, the girl glanced toward him like a vaguely perplexed little ragam.u.f.fin. ”It was--messy,” she admitted softly. Out from her snarl of storm-blown hair, tattered, battered by wind and rain, she peered up suddenly with her first frowning sign of self-consciousness.
”If there's one thing in the world that I regret,” she faltered deprecatingly, ”it's a--it's--an untidy fight.”
Altogether violently Barton burst out laughing. There was no mirth in the laugh, but just noise. ”Oh, let's go home!” he suggested hysterically.
”Home?” faltered little Eve Edgarton. With a sluggish sort of defiance she reached out and gathered the big wet sc.r.a.p-book to her breast.
”Why, Mr. Barton,” she said, ”we couldn't get home now in all this storm and darkness and wash-out--to save our lives. But even if it were moonlight,” she singsonged, ”and starlight--and high-noon; even if there were--chariots--at the door, I'm not going home--now--till I've finished my sc.r.a.p-book--if it takes a week.”
”Eh?” jerked Barton. ”What?” Laboriously he edged himself forward. For five hours now of reckless riding, of storm and privation, through death and disaster, the girl had clung tenaciously to her books and papers. What in creation was in them? ”For Heaven's sake--Miss Edgarton--” he began.
”Oh, don't fuss--so,” said little Eve Edgarton. ”It's nothing but my paper-doll book.”
”Your PAPER-DOLL BOOK?” stammered Barton. With another racking effort he edged himself even farther forward. ”Miss Edgarton!” he asked quite frankly, ”are you--crazy?”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Your PAPER-DOLL BOOK?” stammered Barton]
”N--o! But--very determined,” drawled little Eve Edgarton. With unruffled serenity she picked up a pulpy magazine-page from the ground in front of her and handed it to him. ”And it--would greatly facilitate matters, Mr. Barton,” she confided, ”if you would kindly begin drying out some papers against your side of the lantern.”
”What?” gasped Barton.
Very gingerly he took the pulpy sheet between his thumb and forefinger. It was a full-page picture of a big gas-range, and slowly, as he scanned it for some hidden charm or value, it split in two and fell soggily back to its mates. Once again for sheer nervous relief he burst out laughing.
Out of her diminutiveness, out of her leanness, out of her extraordinary litheness, little Eve Edgarton stared up speculatively at Barton's great hulking helplessness. Her hat looked humorous. Her hair looked humorous. Her tattered flannel s.h.i.+rt was distinctly humorous. But there was nothing humorous about her set little mouth.
”If you--laugh,” she threatened, ”I'll tip you over backward again--and--trample on you.”
”I believe you would!” said Barton with a sudden sobriety more packed with mirth than any laugh he had ever laughed.
”Well, I don't care,” conceded the girl a bit sheepishly. ”Everybody laughs at my paper-doll book! Father does! Everybody does! When I'm rearranging their old mummy collections--and cataloguing their old South American birds--or s.h.i.+ning up their old geological specimens--they think I'm wonderful. But when I try to do the teeniest--tiniest thing that happens to interest me--they call me 'crazy'! So that's why I come 'way out here to this cave--to play,”
she whispered with a flicker of real shyness. ”In all the world,” she confided, ”this cave is the only place I've ever found where there wasn't anybody to laugh at me.”
Between her placid brows a vindictive little frown blackened suddenly.
”That's why it wasn't specially convenient, Mr. Barton--to have you ride with me this afternoon,” she affirmed. ”That's why it wasn't specially convenient to--to have you struck by lightning this afternoon!” Tragically, with one small brown hand, she pointed toward the great water-soaked mess of magazines that surrounded her. ”You see,” she mourned, ”I've been saving them up all summer--to cut out--to-day! And now?--Now--? We're sailing for Melbourne Sat.u.r.day!”
she added conclusively.
”Well--really!” stammered Barton. ”Well--truly!--Well, of all--d.a.m.ned things! Why--what do you want me to do? Apologize to you for having been struck by lightning?” His voice was fairly riotous with astonishment and indignation. Then quite unexpectedly one side of his mouth began to twist upward in the faintest perceptible sort of a real grin.
”When you smile like that you're--quite pleasant,” murmured little Eve Edgarton.
”Is that so?” grinned Barton. ”Well, it wouldn't hurt you to smile just a tiny bit now and then!”
”Wouldn't it?” said little Eve Edgarton. Thoughtfully for a moment, with her scissors poised high in the air, she seemed to be considering the suggestion. Then quite abruptly again she resumed her task of prying some pasted object out of her sc.r.a.p-book. ”Oh, no, thank you, Mr. Barton,” she decided. ”I'm much too bored--all the while--to do any smiling.”
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