that--I can't tell how, but I knew."

"Well, how can you know about him?"

"Oh, him!" The words implied that the flapper had waved a deprecating
hand. "Why, I know about him in just the same way; you can't tell how.
It comes over you!"

The Demon: (A long-drawn) "U-u-mm!"

The flapper: "And he makes me perfectly furious sometimes, too!"

There was a stir as if they were leaving. Bean retreated a dozen feet
before he breathed again. So that was their game, was it? He'd see about
that!

He waited for them to emerge, but they had apparently settled to more of
this high-handed talk. Then, like an icy wave to engulf him, came a
name--"Tommy Hollins." It came in the Demon's voice, indistinguishable
words preceding it. And in the flapper's voice came "Tommy Hollins!"
gently, caressingly, it seemed. In truth, the flapper had sniffed before
uttering it, and the sniff had meant good-natured contempt but Bean had
lost the sniff.

Now he had it! Tommy Hollins! He identified the youth, a yellow-headed,
pink-faced lout in flannels who was always riding over, and who seemed
to "go in" for nearly everything. He had detected a romping intimacy
between the two. So it was Tommy Hollins. At once he felt a great
relief; he need worry no longer over the singular attentions of this
young woman. Let Tommy Hollins worry! He could admit, now, how grave had
been his alarm. And there was nothing in it. He could meet her without
being afraid. He was almost ready to approach them genially and pass an
hour in light conversation. He advanced a few steps with this intention,
but again came the voice of the flapper replying, apparently, to some
unheard admonition. It came, cold and terrible.

"I don't care. I've got the right to choose the father of my own
children!"

He blushed for this language, a blush he could feel mantling his very
toes. He fled from there. He saw that the moment was not for light
conversation. And even as he fled he caught the Demon's prolonged
"U-u-mmm!"

Yet when he left in the morning the flapper lurked for him as ever,
materializing from an apparently vacant corridor. He greeted her for the
first time without ulterior questioning. He thought he liked her pretty
well now. And she was undeniably good to look at in the white of her
tennis costume; the hair, like Nap's spots in its golden brown, was
filleted with a scarlet ribbon, and her eyes shone from her freshened
face with an unwonted sparkle--decision, certitude