"Then oh--won't you please--please--turn round--and go home--and leave
me alone?" she pleaded astonishingly.

"Turn round and go home?" stammered Barton.

The touch on his sleeve quickened a little. "Oh, yes--please, Mr.
Barton!" insisted the tremulous voice.

"You--you mean I'm in your way?" stammered Barton.

Very gravely the girl nodded her head. "Oh, yes, Mr. Barton--you're
terribly in my way," she acknowledged quite frankly.

"Good Heavens," thought Barton, "is there a man in this? Is it a
tryst? Well, of all things!"

Jerkily he began to back his horse out of the spring-hole,
back--back--back through the intricate, overgrown pathway of flapping
leaves and sharp, scratchy twigs.

"I am very sorry, Miss Edgarton, to have forced my presence on you
so!" he murmured ironically.

"Oh, it isn't just you!" said little Eve Edgarton quite frankly. "It's
all Father's friends." Almost threateningly as she spoke she jerked up
her own horse's drizzling mouth and rode right at Barton as if to
force him back even faster through the great snarl of underbrush. "I
hate clever people!" she asserted passionately. "I hate them--hate
them--hate them! I hate all Father's clever friends! I hate--"