trunk.

"Oh--my manuscript notes, Father, please!" she ordered almost
peremptorily, "John's notes, you know? I might as well be working on
them while I'm lying here."

Obediently from the tousled top of the steamer trunk her father
returned with the great batch of rough manuscript. "And my pencil,
please," persisted little Eve Edgarton. "And my eraser. And my
writing-board. And my ruler. And my--"

Absent-mindedly, one by one, Edgarton handed the articles to her, and
then sank down on the foot of her bed with his thin-lipped mouth
contorted into a rather mirthless grin. "Don't care much for your old
father, do you?" he asked trenchantly.

Gravely for a moment the girl sat studying her father's weather-beaten
features, the thin hair, the pale, shrewd eyes, the gaunt cheeks, the
indomitable old-young mouth. Then a little shy smile flickered across
her face and was gone again.

"As a parent, dear," she drawled, "I love you to distraction! But as a
daily companion?" Vaguely her eyebrows lifted. "As a real playmate?"
Against the starch-white of her pillows the sudden flutter of her
small brown throat showed with almost startling distinctness. "But as
a real playmate," she persisted evenly, "you are so--intelligent--and
you travel so fast--it tires me."

"Whom do you like?" asked her father sharply.