"But--why do you have to write it?" gasped Barton.

Languidly her heavy lashes shadowed down across her cheeks again.
"It's for the British consul at Nunko-Nono," she said. "It's some
notes he asked me to make for him in London this last spring."

"But for mercy's sake--do you like to write things like that?"
insisted Barton.

"Oh, no," drawled little Eve Edgarton. "But of course--if I marry
him," she confided without the slightest flicker of emotion, "it's
what I'll have to write--all the rest of my life."

"But--" stammered Barton. "For mercy's sake, do you want to marry
him?" he asked quite bluntly.

"Oh, no," drawled little Eve Edgarton.

Impatiently Barton threw away his half-smoked cigarette and lighted a
fresh one. "Then why?" he demanded.

"Oh, it's something Father invented," said little Eve Edgarton.

Altogether emphatically Barton pushed back his chair. "Well, I call
it a shame!" he said. "For a nice live little girl like you to be
packed off like so much baggage--to marry some great gray-bearded
clout who hasn't got an idea in his head except--except--"
squintingly he stared down at the scattered sheets on the
floor--"except--'Amphichelydia,'" he asserted with some feeling.