"Did you ever read any fairy stories?" she asked with apparent
irrelevance.

"Why, of course," said Barton. "Millions of them when I was a kid."

"I read one--once," said little Eve Edgarton. "It was about a person,
a sleeping person, a lady, I mean, who couldn't wake up until a prince
kissed her. Well, that was all right, of course," conceded little Eve
Edgarton, "because, of course, any prince would have been willing to
kiss the lady just as a mere matter of accommodation. But suppose,"
fretted little Eve Edgarton, "suppose the bewitchment also ran that no
prince would kiss the lady until she had waked up? Now there!" said
little Eve Edgarton, "is a situation that I should call completely
stalled."

"But what's all this got to do with you?" grinned Barton.

"Nothing at all to do with me!" said little Eve Edgarton. "It is me!
That's just exactly the way I'm fixed. I can't be attractive--out
loud--until some one likes me! But no one, of course, will ever like
me until I am already attractive--out loud! So that's why I wondered,"
she said, "if just as a mere matter of accommodation, you wouldn't be
willing to be friends with me now? So that for at least the fifty-two
hours that remain, I could be released--from my most unhappy
enchantment."

Astonishingly across that frank, perfectly outspoken little face, the
frightened eyelashes came flickering suddenly down. "Because,"
whispered little Eve Edgarton, "because--you see--I happen to like you