a and B. arenosa, to which was
added B. hebraica and B. ponderosa--"

Petulantly he slammed the whole handful of papers to the floor.

"Eve!" he stammered. "I can't stand it! I tell you--I just can't stand
it! Take my attic if you want to! Or my cellar! Or my garage! Or
anything else of mine in the world that you have any fancy for! But
for Heaven's sake--"

With extraordinarily dilated eyes Eve Edgarton stared out at him from
her white pillows.

"Why--why, if it makes you feel like that--just to read it," she
reproached him mournfully, "how do you suppose it makes me feel to
have to write it? All you have to do--is to read it," she said. "But
I? I have to write it!"

"But--why do you have to write it?" gasped Barton.

Languidly her heavy lashes shadowed down across her cheeks again.
"It's for the British consul at Nunko-Nono," she said. "It's some
notes he asked me to make for him in London this last spring."

"But for mercy's sake--do you like to write things like that?"
insisted Barton.

"Oh, no," drawled little Eve Edgarton. "But of course--if I marry
him," she confided without the slightest flicker of emotion, "it's
what I'll have to write--all the rest of my life."

"But--" stammered Barton. "For mercy's sake, do you want to marry
him?" he asked quite bluntly.

"Oh, no," drawled little Eve Edgarton.

Impatiently Barton threw away his half-smoked cigarette and lighted a
fresh one. "Then why?" he demanded.

"Oh, it's something Father invented," said little Eve Edgarton.

Altogether emphatically Barton pushed back his chair. "Well, I call
it a shame!" he said. "For a nice live little girl like you to be
packed off like so much baggage--to marry some great gray-bearded
clout who hasn't got an idea in his head except--except--"
squintingly he stared down at the scattered sheets on the
floor--"except--'Amphichelydia,'" he asserted with some feeling.

"Yes--isn't it?" sighed little Eve Edgarton.

"For Heaven's sake!" said Barton. "Where is Nunko-Nono?"

"Nunko-Nono?" whispered little Eve Edgarton. "Where is it? Why, it's
an island! In an ocean, you know! Rather a hot--green island! In
rather a hot--blue-green ocean! Lots of green palms, you know, and
rank, rough, green grass--and green bugs--and green butterflies--and
green snakes. And a great crawling, crunching collar of white sand and
hermit-crabs all around it. And then just a long, unbroken line of
turquoise-colored waves. And then more tur