Little Eve Edgarton by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

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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
already."

"Oh, fine!" smiled Barton. "Fine! Fine! Fi--" Abruptly the word broke
in his throat. "What?" he cried. His hand--the steadiest hand among
all his chums--began to shake like an aspen. "WHAT?" he cried. His
heart, the steadiest heart among all his chums, began to pitch and
lurch in his breast. "Why, Eve! Eve!" he stammered. "You don't mean
you like me--like that?"

"Yes--I do," nodded the little white-capped head. There was much
shyness of flesh in the statement, but not a flicker of spiritual
self-consciousness or fear.

"But--Eve!" protested Barton. Already he felt the goose-flesh rising
on his arms. Once before a girl had told him that she--liked him. In
the middle of a silly summer flirtation it had been, and the scene had
been mawkish, awful, a mess of tears and kisses and endless
recriminations. But this girl? Before the utter simplicity of this
girl's statement, the unruffled dignity, the mere acknowledgment, as
it were, of an interesting historical fact, all his trifling,
preconceived ideas went tumbling down before his eyes like a flimsy
house of cards. Pang after pang of regret for the girl, of regret for
himself, went surging hotly through him. "Oh, but--Eve!" he began all
over again. His voice was raw with misery.

"Why, there's nothing to make a fuss about," drawled little Eve
Edgarton. "You've probably liked a thousand people, but I--you
see?--I've never had the fun of liking--any one--before!"

"Fun?" tortured Barton. "Yes, that's just it! If you'd ever had the
fun of liking anything it wouldn't seem half so brutal--now!"

"Brutal?" mused little Eve Edgarton. "Oh, really, Mr. Jim Barton, I
assure you," she said, "there's nothing brutal at all in my
liking--for you."

With a gasp of despair Barton stumbled across the rug to the bed, and
with a shaky hand thrust under Eve Edgarton's chin, turned her little
face bluntly up to him to tell her--how proud he felt, but--to tell
her how sorry he was, but--

[Illustration: "Any time that you people want me," suggested
Edgarton's icy voice, "I am standing here--in about the middle of the
floor!"]

And as he turned that little face up to
his,--inconceivably--incomprehensively--to his utter consternation and
rout--he saw that it was a stranger's little face that he held. Gone
was the sullen frown, the indifferent glance, the bitter smile, and in
that sudden, amazing, wild, sweet transfiguration of brow, eyes,
mouth, that met his astonished eyes, he felt his whole mean,
supercilious world slip out from under his feet! And just as
precipitously, just as inexplainably, as ten days before he had seen a
Great Light that had knocked all consciousness out of him, he
experienced now a second Great Light that knocked him back into the
first full consciousness that he had ever known!

"Why, Eve!" he stammered. "Why, you--mischief! Why, you little--cheeky
darling! Why, my own--darned little Story Book Girl!" And gathered her
into his arms.

From the farther side of the room the sound of a creaking board smote
almost instantly upon their ears.

"Any time that you people want me," suggested Edgarton's icy voice, "I
am standing here--in about the middle of the floor!"

With a jerk of dismay Barton wheeled around to face him. But it was
little Eve Edgarton herself who found her tongue first.

"Oh, Father dear--I have been perfectly wise!" she hastened to assure
him. "Almost at once, Father, I told him that I liked him, so that if
he really were the dreadful kind of young man you were warning me
about, he would eliminate himself from my horizon--immediately--in his
wicked pursuit of--some other lady! Oh, he did run, Father!" she
confessed in the first red blush of her life. "Oh, he did--run,
Father, but it was--almost directly--toward me!"

"Eh?" snapped Edgarton.

Then in a divine effrontery, half impudence and half humility, Barton
stepped out into the middle of the room, and proffered his strong,
firm young hand to the older man.

"You told me," he grinned, "to rummage around until I discovered a
Real Treasure? Well, I didn't have to do it! It was the Treasure, it
seems, who discovered me!"

Then suddenly into his fine young eyes flared up the first glint of
his new-born soul.

"Your daughter, sir," said Barton, "is the most beautiful woman in the
world! As you suggested to me, I have found out what she is interested
in--She is interested in--ME!"

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