"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--" "But you see I'm not clever," grinned Barton in spite of himself. "Oh, not clever at all," he reiterated with some grimness as an alder branch slapped him stingingly across one eye. "Indeed--" he dodged and ducked and floundered, still backing, backing, everlastingly backing--"indeed, your father has spent quite a lot of his valuable time this afternoon assuring me--and reassuring me--that--that I'm altogether a fool!" Unrelentingly little Eve Edgarton's horse kept right on forcing him back--back--back. "But if you're not one of Father's clever friends--who are you?" she demanded perplexedly. "And why did you insist so on riding with me this afternoon?" she cried accusingly. "I didn't exactly--insist," grinned Barton with a flush of guilt. The flush of guilt added to the flush of heat made him look suddenly very confused. Across Eve Edgarton's thin little face the flash of temper faded instantly into mere sulky ennui again. "Oh, dear--oh, dear," she droned. "You--you didn't want to marry me, did you?" Just for one mad, panic-stricken second the whole world seemed to turn black before Barton's eyes. His heart stopped beating. His ear-drums cracked. Then suddenly, astonishingly, he found himself grinning into that honest little face, and answering comfortably: "Why, no, Miss Edgarton, I hadn't the slightest idea in the world of wanting to marry you." "Thank God for that!" gasped little Eve Edgarton. "So many of Father's friends do want to marry me," she confided plaintively, still driving Barton back through that horrid scratchy thicket. "I'm so rich, you see," she confided with equal simplicity, "and I know so much--there's almost always somebody in Petrozavodsk or Broken Hill or Bashukulumbwe who wants to marry me." "In--where?" stammered Barton. "Why--in Russia!" said little Eve Edgarton with some surprise. "And Australia! And Africa! Were you never there?" "I've been in Jersey City," babbled Barton with a desperate attempt at facetiousness. "I was never there!" admitted little Eve Edgarton regretfully. Vehemently with one hand she lunged forward and tried with her tiny open palm to push Barton's horse a trifle faster back through the intricate thicket. Then once in the open again she drew herself up with an absurd air of dignity and finality and bowed him from her presence. "Good-by, Mr. Barton," she said. "Good-by, Mr. Barton."