Part 16 (1/2)
”Oh, but--I say!” grinned Barton. ”Some real thing, I mean! Couldn't I--couldn't I--read aloud to you?” he articulated quite distinctly, as Edgarton came rustling back into the room with his arms full of papers.
”Read aloud?” gibed Edgarton across the top of his spectacles. ”It's a daring man, in this unexpurgated day and generation, who offers to read aloud to a lady.”
”He might read me my geology notes,” suggested little Eve Edgarton blandly.
”Your geology notes?” hooted her father. ”What's this? Some more of your new-fangled 'small talk'? Your geology notes?” Still chuckling mirthlessly, he strode over to the big table by the window and, spreading out his orchid data over every conceivable inch of s.p.a.ce, settled himself down serenely to compare one ”flower of mystery” with another.
Furtively for a moment Barton sat studying the gaunt, graceful figure.
Then quite impulsively he turned back to little Eve Edgarton's scowling face.
”Nevertheless, Miss Eve,” he grinned, ”I should be perfectly delighted to read your geology notes to you. Where are they?”
”Here,” droned little Eve Edgarton, slapping listlessly at the loose pile of pages beside her.
Conscientiously Barton reached out and gathered the flimsy papers into one trim handful. ”Where shall I begin?” he asked.
”It doesn't matter,” murmured little Eve Edgarton.
”What?” said Barton. Nervously he began to fumble through the pages.
”Isn't there any beginning?” he demanded.
”No,” moped little Eve Edgarton.
”Nor any end?” he insisted. ”Nor any middle?”
”N--o,” sighed little Eve Edgarton.
Helplessly Barton plunged into the unhappy task before him. On page nine there were perhaps the fewest blots. He decided to begin there.
”Paleontologically,”
the first sentence smote him--
”Paleontologically the periods are characterized by absence of the large marine saurians, Dinosaurs and Pterosaurs--”
”eh?” gasped Barton.
”Why, of course!” called Edgarton, a bit impatiently, from the window.
Laboriously Barton went back and reread the phrase to himself.
”Oh--oh, yes,” he conceded lamely.
”Paleontologically,”
he began all over again. ”Oh, dear, no!” he interrupted himself. ”I was farther along than that!--Absence of marine saurians? Oh, yes!
”Absence of marine saurians,”
he resumed glibly,