“The—­very—­same,” nodded little Eve Edgarton soberly.

“Oh—­Lordy!” groaned her father from the window.

“Oh, this is going to be lots better!” beamed Barton.  “Now that I know what it’s all about—­”

“For goodness’ sake,” growled Edgarton from his table, “how do you people think I’m going to do any work with all this jabbering going on!”

Hesitatingly for a moment Barton glanced back over his shoulder at Edgarton, and then turned round again to probe Eve’s preferences in the matter.  As sluggishly determinate as two black turtles trailing along a white sand beach, her great dark eyes in her little pale face seemed headed suddenly toward some Far-Away Idea.

“Oh—­go right on reading, Mr. Barton,” nodded little Eve Edgarton.

     “Three superfamilies of turtles,”

began Barton all over again.

     “Three superfamilies of turtles—­the—­the Amphichelydia, the
     Cryptodira, and the Tri—­the—­Tri—­the
     T-r-i-o-n-y-c-h-o-i-d-e-a,”

he spelled out laboriously.

With a vicious jerk of his chair Edgarton snatched up his papers and his orchids and started for the door.

[Illustration:  “You’re nice,” he said.  “I like you!”]

“When you people get all through this nonsense,” he announced, “maybe you’ll be kind enough to let me know!  I shall be in the writing-room!” With satirical courtesy he bowed first to Eve, then to Barton, dallied an instant on the threshold to repeat both bows, and went out, slamming the door behind him.

“A nervous man, isn’t he?” suggested Barton.

Gravely little Eve Edgarton considered the thought.  “Trionychoidea,” she prompted quite irrelevantly.

“Oh, yes—­of course,” conceded Barton.  “But do you mind if I smoke?”

“No, I don’t mind if you smoke,” singsonged the girl.

With a palpable sigh of relief Barton lighted a cigarette.  “You’re nice,” he said.  “I like you!” Conscientiously then he resumed his reading.

     “No—­Pleurodira—­have yet been found,”

he began.

“Yes—­isn’t that too bad?” sighed little Eve Edgarton.

“It doesn’t matter personally to me,” admitted Barton.  Hastily he moved on to the next sentence.

     “The Amphichelydia—­are known there by only the genus Baena,”

he read.

     “Two described species:  B. undata 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!”