been--pretty," she asserted calmly, "or interesting-looking, anyway.
Mother would surely have managed it--somehow; and I should have had a
lot of beaux--young men beaux I mean, like you. Father's friends are
all so gray!--Oh, of course, I shall marry--some time," she continued
evenly. "Probably I'm going to marry the British consul at Nunko-Nono.
He's a great friend of Father's--and he wants me to help him write a
book on 'The Geologic Relationship of Melanesia to the Australian
Continent'!"

Dully her voice rose to its monotone: "But I don't suppose--we shall
live in a--house," she moaned apathetically. "At the best it will
probably be only a musty room or two up over the consulate--and more
likely than not it won't be anything at all except a nipa hut and a
typewriter-table."

As if some mote of dust disturbed her, suddenly she rubbed the knuckles
of one hand across her eyes. "But maybe we'll have--daughters,"
she persisted undauntedly. "And maybe they'll have houses!"

"Oh, shucks!" said Barton uneasily. "A--a house isn't so much!"

"It--isn't?" asked little Eve Edgarton incredulously. "Why--why--you
don't mean--"

"Don't mean--what?" puzzled Barton.

"Do--you--live--in--a--house?" asked little Eve Edgarton abruptly. Her
hands were suddenly quiet in her lap, her tousled head cocked ever so
slightly to one side, her sluggish eyes incredibly dilated.