awful, a mess of tears and kisses and endless
recriminations. But this girl? Before the utter simplicity of this
girl's statement, the unruffled dignity, the mere acknowledgment, as
it were, of an interesting historical fact, all his trifling,
preconceived ideas went tumbling down before his eyes like a flimsy
house of cards. Pang after pang of regret for the girl, of regret for
himself, went surging hotly through him. "Oh, but--Eve!" he began all
over again. His voice was raw with misery.

"Why, there's nothing to make a fuss about," drawled little Eve
Edgarton. "You've probably liked a thousand people, but I--you
see?--I've never had the fun of liking--any one--before!"

"Fun?" tortured Barton. "Yes, that's just it! If you'd ever had the
fun of liking anything it wouldn't seem half so brutal--now!"

"Brutal?" mused little Eve Edgarton. "Oh, really, Mr. Jim Barton, I
assure you," she said, "there's nothing brutal at all in my
liking--for you."

With a gasp of despair Barton stumbled across the rug to the bed, and
with a shaky hand thrust under Eve Edgarton's chin, turned her little
face bluntly up to him to tell her--how proud he felt, but--to tell
her how sorry he was, but--

[Illustration: "Any time that you people want me," suggested
Edgarton's icy voice, "I am standing here--in about the middle of the
floor!"]

And as he turned that little face up to
his,--inconceivably--incomprehensively--to his utter consternation and
rout--he saw that it was a stranger's little face that he held. Gone
was the sullen frown, the indifferent glance, the bitter smile, and in
that sudden, amazing, wild, sweet transfiguration of brow, eyes,
mouth, that met his astonished eyes, he felt his whole mean,
supercilious world slip out from under his feet! And just as
precipitously, just as inexplainably, as ten days before he had seen a
Great Light that had knocked all consciousness out of him, he
experienced now a second Great Light that knocked him back into the
first full consciousness that he had ever known!

"Why, Eve!" he stammered. "Why, you--mischief! Why, you little--cheeky
darling! Why, my own--darned little Story Book Girl!" And gathered her
into his arms.

From the farther side of the room the sound of a creaking board smote
almost instantly upon their ears.

"Any time that you people want me," suggested Edgarton's icy voice, "I
am standing here--in about the middle of the floor!"

With a jerk of dismay Barton wheel