Part 7 (1/2)
”Bored?” snapped Barton. Staring perplexedly into her dreary, meek little face, something deeper, something infinitely subtler than mere curiosity, wakened precipitately in his consciousness. ”For Heaven's sake, Miss Edgarton!” he stammered. ”From the Arctic Ocean to the South Seas, if you've seen all the things that you must have seen, if you've done all the things that you must have done--WHY SHOULD YOU LOOK SO BORED?”
Flutteringly the girl's eyes lifted and fell. ”Why, I'm bored, Mr.
Barton,” drawled little Eve Edgarton, ”I'm bored because--I'm sick to death--of seeing all the things I've seen. I'm sick to death of--doing all the things I've done.” With little metallic snips of sound she concentrated herself and her scissors suddenly upon the mahogany-colored picture of a pianola.
”Well, what do you want?” quizzed Barton.
In a sullen, turgid sort of defiance the girl lifted her somber eyes to his. ”I want to stay home--like other people--and have a house,”
she wailed. ”I want a house--and--the things that go with a house: a cat, and the things that go with a cat; kittens, and the things that go with kittens; saucers of cream, and the things that go with saucers of cream; ice-chests, and--and--” Surprisingly into her languid, sing-song tone broke a sudden note of pa.s.sion. ”Bah!” she snapped.
”Think of going all the way to India just to plunge your arms into the spooky, foamy Ganges and 'make a wish'! 'What do you wish?' asks Father, pleased-as a Chessy-puss. Humph! I wish it was the soap-suds in my own wash-tub!--Or gallivanting down to British Guiana just to smell the great blowsy water-lilies in the ca.n.a.ls! I'd rather smell burned crackers in my own cook stove!”
”But you'll surely have a house--some time,” argued Barton with real sympathy. Quite against all intention the girl's unexpected emotion disturbed him a little. ”Every girl gets a house--some time!” he insisted resolutely.
”N--o, I don't--think so,” mused Eve Edgarton judicially. ”You see,”
she explained with soft, slow deliberation, ”you see, Mr. Barton, only people who live in houses know people who live in houses! If you're a nomad you meet--only nomads! Campers mate just naturally with campers, and ocean-travelers with ocean-travelers--and red-velvet hotel-dwellers with red-velvet hotel-dwellers. Oh, of course, if Mother had lived it might have been different,” she added a trifle more cheerfully. ”For, of course, if Mother had lived I should have been--pretty,” she a.s.serted calmly, ”or interesting-looking, anyway.
Mother would surely have managed it--somehow; and I should have had a lot of beaux--young men beaux I mean, like you. Father's friends are all so gray!--Oh, of course, I shall marry--some time,” she continued evenly. ”Probably I'm going to marry the British consul at Nunko-Nono.
He's a great friend of Father's--and he wants me to help him write a book on 'The Geologic Relations.h.i.+p of Melanesia to the Australian Continent'!”
Dully her voice rose to its monotone: ”But I don't suppose--we shall live in a--house,” she moaned apathetically. ”At the best it will probably be only a musty room or two up over the consulate--and more likely than not it won't be anything at all except a nipa hut and a typewriter-table.”
As if some mote of dust disturbed her, suddenly she rubbed the knuckles of one hand across her eyes. ”But maybe we'll have--daughters,”
she persisted undauntedly. ”And maybe they'll have houses!”
”Oh, shucks!” said Barton uneasily. ”A--a house isn't so much!”
”It--isn't?” asked little Eve Edgarton incredulously. ”Why--why--you don't mean--”
”Don't mean--what?” puzzled Barton.
”Do--you--live--in--a--house?” asked little Eve Edgarton abruptly. Her hands were suddenly quiet in her lap, her tousled head c.o.c.ked ever so slightly to one side, her sluggish eyes incredibly dilated.
”Why, of course I live in a house,” laughed Barton.
”O--h,” breathed little Eve Edgarton. ”Re--ally? It must be wonderful.” Wiltingly her eyes, her hands, drooped back to her sc.r.a.p-book again. ”In--all--my--life,” she resumed monotonously, ”I've never spent a single night--in a real house.”
”What?” questioned Barton.
”Oh, of course,” explained the girl dully, ”of course I've spent no end of nights in hotels and camps and huts and trains and steamers and--But--What color is your house?” she asked casually.
”Why, brown, I guess,” said Barton.
”Brown, you 'guess'?” whispered the girl pitifully. ”Don't you--know?”
”No, I wouldn't exactly like to swear to it,” grinned Barton a bit sheepishly.
Again the girl's eyes lifted just a bit over-intently from the work in her lap.
”What color is the wall-paper--in your own room?” she asked casually.
”Is it--is it a--dear pinkie-posie sort of effect? Or just plain--shaded stripes?”