row if you got up quite early,
there would be a long, long morning, and--we--could get
acquainted--some," she insisted.

"Why, Eve!" said Barton, "do you really mean that you would like to
be friends with me?"

"Yes--I do," nodded the crown of the white-bandaged head.

"But I'm so stupid," confided Barton, with astonishing humility. "All
these botany things--and geology--and--"

"Yes, I know it," mumbled little Eve Edgarton. "That's what makes you
so restful."

"What?" queried Barton a bit sharply. Then very absent-mindedly for a
moment he sat staring off into space through a gray, pungent haze of
cigarette smoke.

"Eve," he ventured at last.

"What?" mumbled little Eve Edgarton.

"Nothing," said Barton.

"Mr. Jim Barton," ventured Eve.

"What?" asked Barton.

"Nothing," mumbled little Eve Edgarton.

Out of some emotional or purely social tensities of life it seems
rather that Time strikes the clock than that anything so small as a
clock should dare strike the Time. One--two--three--four--five! winced
the poor little frightened traveling-clock on the mantelpiece.

Then quite abruptly little Eve Edgarton emerged from her cozy
cushions, sitting bolt upright like a doughty little warrior.

"Mr. Jim Barton!" said little Eve Edgarton. "If I stayed here two
weeks longer--I know you'd like me! I know it! I just know it!"
Quizzically for an instant, as if to accumulate further courage, she
cocked her little head on one side and stared blankly into Barton's
astonished eyes. "But you see I'm not going to be here two weeks!" she
resumed hurriedly. Again the little head cocked appealingly to one
side. "You--you wouldn't be willing to take my word for it, would you?
And like me--now?"

"Why--why, what do you mean?" stammered Barton.

"What do I mean?" quizzed little Eve Edgarton. "Why, I mean--that just
once before I go off to Nunko-Nono--I'd like to be--attractive!"

"Attractive?" stammered Barton helplessly.

With all the desperate, indomitable frankness of a child, the girl's
chin thrust itself forward.

"I could be attractive!" she said. "I could! I know I could! If I'd
ever let go just the teeniest--tiniest bit--I could have--beaux!" she
asserted triumphantly. "A thousand beaux!" she added more explicitly.
"Only--"

"Only what?" laughed Barton.

"Only one doesn't let go," said little Eve Edgarton.

"Why not?" persisted Barton.

"Why, you just--couldn't--with strangers," said little Eve Edgarton.