_ flirt with "any one," no doubt
about that. She adroitly revealed to Bean an unshakable conviction that
he was desperately enamoured of her, and that it served him right for a
presumptuous nobody. She talked to him, preened herself in his gaze, and
maddened him with a manner of deadly roguishness. Then she flew to exert
the same charm upon any one of the resplendent young men who were
constantly riding over or tooting over in big black motor-cars. They
were young men who apparently had nothing to do but "go in" for
things--riding, tennis, polo, golf. To all of them she was the
self-confident charmer; just the kind of a girl to make a fool of you
and tell about it.

Twenty-four hours after her first assault upon him he was still wrecking
the ship at the entrance to that lagoon, but now he watched the big
sister go down for the third time while he placidly rescued a stoker to
share his romantic isolation.

The flapper and Grandma, the Demon, were even more objectionable, and,
what was worse, they alarmed him. Puzzled as to their purpose, he knew
not what defence to make. He was swept on some secret and sinister
current to an end he could not divine.

The flapper lay in wait for him at all hours when he might appear. Did
he open a door, she lurked in the corridor; did he seek refuge in the
gloom of the library, she arose to confront him from its dimmest nook;
did he plan a masterly escape by a rear stairway, she burst upon him
from the ambush of some exotic shrub to demand which way he had thought
of going. He had never thought of a way that did not prove to have been
her own. The creature was a leech! If she had only talked, he believed
that he could have thrown her off. But she would not talk. She merely
walked beside him insatiably. Sometimes he thought he could detect a
faint anxiety in the look she kept upon him, but, mostly, it was the
look of something calm, secure, ruthless. Something! It unnerved him.

It was usually probable that Grandma, the Demon, would join them, the
silver cigarette case dangling at her girdle. Then was he sorely beset.
They would perhaps talk about him over his head, discuss his points as
if he were some new beast from the stables.

"I tell you, he's over an inch taller than I am," announced the flapper.

"U-u-mm!" replied Grandma, measuring Bean's stature with narrowed eye.
"U-u-mm!"

"You show her!" commanded flapper, in a louder voice, as if she believed
him deaf. She grasped his