lder Man thoughtfully. "Who
is she? Miss Edgarton? Why--no one special--except--just my daughter."

Like a fly plunged all unwittingly upon a sheet of sticky paper the
Younger Man's hands and feet seemed to shoot out suddenly in every
direction.

"Good Heavens!" he gasped. "Your daughter?" he mumbled. "Your
daughter?" Every other word or phrase in the English language seemed
to be stricken suddenly from his lips. "Your--your--daughter?" he
began all over again. "Why--I--I--didn't know your name was Edgarton!"
he managed finally to articulate.

An expression of ineffable triumph, and of triumph only, flickered in
the Older Man's face.

"Why, that's just what I've been saying," he reiterated amiably. "You
don't know anything!"

Fatuously the Younger Man rose to his feet, still struggling for
speech--any old speech--a sentence, a word, a cough, anything, in
fact, that would make a noise.

"Well, if little Miss Edgarton is--little Miss Edgarton," he babbled
idiotically, "who in creation--are you?"

"Who am I?" stammered the Older Man perplexedly. As if the question
really worried him, he sagged back a trifle against the sustaining
wall of the house, and stood with his hands thrust deep in his pockets
once more. "Who am I?" he repeated blandly. Again one eyebrow lifted.
Again one side of his thin-lipped mouth twitched ever so slightly to
the right. "Why, I'm just a man, Mr. Barton," he grinned very faintly,
"who travels all over the world for the sake of whatever amusement he
can get out of it. And some afternoons, of course, I get a good deal
more amusement out of it--than I do others. Eh?"

Furiously the red blood mounted into the Young Man's cheeks. "Oh, I
say, Edgarton!" he pleaded. Mirthlessly, wretchedly, a grin began to
spread over his face. "Oh, I say!" he faltered. "I _am_ a fool!"

The Older Man threw back his head and started to laugh.

[Illustration: 'I am riding,' she murmured almost inaudibly]

At the first cackling syllable of the laugh, with appalling
fatefulness Eve Edgarton herself loomed suddenly on the scene, in her
old slouch hat, her gray flannel shirt, her weather-beaten khaki
Norfolk and riding-breeches, looking for all the world like an
extraordinarily slim, extraordinarily shabby little boy just starting
out to play. Up from the top of one riding-boot the butt of a revolver
protruded slightly.

With her heavy black eyelashes shadowing somberly down across her
olive-tinted cheeks, she