"Oh--go right on reading, Mr. Barton," nodded little Eve Edgarton. "Three superfamilies of turtles," began Barton all over again. "Three superfamilies of turtles--the--the Amphichelydia, the Cryptodira, and the Tri--the--Tri--the T-r-i-o-n-y-c-h-o-i-d-e-a," he spelled out laboriously. With a vicious jerk of his chair Edgarton snatched up his papers and his orchids and started for the door. [Illustration: "You're nice," he said. "I like you!"] "When you people get all through this nonsense," he announced, "maybe you'll be kind enough to let me know! I shall be in the writing-room!" With satirical courtesy he bowed first to Eve, then to Barton, dallied an instant on the threshold to repeat both bows, and went out, slamming the door behind him. "A nervous man, isn't he?" suggested Barton. Gravely little Eve Edgarton considered the thought. "Trionychoidea," she prompted quite irrelevantly. "Oh, yes--of course," conceded Barton. "But do you mind if I smoke?" "No, I don't mind if you smoke," singsonged the girl. With a palpable sigh of relief Barton lighted a cigarette. "You're nice," he said. "I like you!" Conscientiously then he resumed his reading. "No--Pleurodira--have yet been found," he began. "Yes--isn't that too bad?" sighed little Eve Edgarton. "It doesn't matter personally to me," admitted Barton. Hastily he moved on to the next sentence. "The Amphichelydia--are known there by only the genus Baena," he read. "Two described species: B. undata and B. arenosa, to which was added B. hebraica and B. ponderosa--" Petulantly he slammed the whole handful of papers to the floor. "Eve!" he stammered. "I can't stand it! I tell you--I just can't stand it! Take my attic if you want to! Or my cellar! Or my garage! Or anything else of mine in the world that you have any fancy for! But for Heaven's sake--" With extraordinarily dilated eyes Eve Edgarton stared out at him from her white pillows. "Why--why, if it makes you feel like that--just to read it," she reproached him mournfully, "how do you suppose it makes me feel to have to write it? All you have to do--is to read it," she said. "But I? I have to write it!" "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.