seeing
that he considered it precisely the right one. He moved importantly off.
The three regarded each other a moment.

Bean played the waiting game. The flapper played her ancient game of
looking at him in that curious way. Grandma looked at them both, then
meaningly at Bean. She spoke.

"I'll say very frankly that I wouldn't marry you myself."

He blinked, then he pretended to search with his eyes for their vanished
waiter. But it was no good. He had to face the Demon, helpless.

"But that's nothing to your discredit, and it isn't a question of me,"
she added dispassionately.

His inner voice chanted, "Play the waiting game; play the waiting game."

"Every woman with a head on her knows what she wants when she sees it.
And nowadays, thanks to the efforts of a few noble leaders of our sex,
she has the right and the courage to take it. I haven't wasted any time
talking to _her_." She indicated the flapper, who still fixed the
implacable look on Bean.

"If she doesn't know at nineteen, she never would--"

"We've settled all _that_," said the flapper loftily. "Haven't we?"

Bean nodded. All at once that look of the flapper's began to be
intelligible. He could almost read it.

"I suppose you expect me to talk a lot of that stuff about marriage
being a serious business," continued the Demon evenly. "But I shan't.
Marriage isn't half as serious as living alone is. It's what we were
made for in my time, and your time isn't a bit different, young man."

She raised an argumentative finger toward him, as if he had sought to
contest this.

"I've always--" he began weakly. But the Demon would have none of it.

"Oh, don't tell _me_ what you've 'always!' I know well enough what
you've 'always.' That isn't the point."

What did the woman think she was talking about? Couldn't he say a word
to her without being snapped at?

"What is the point?" he ventured. It was still the waiting game, and it
showed he wasn't afraid of her.

"The point is--"

[Illustration: In that instant Bean read the flapper's look, the look
she had puzzled him with from their first meeting]

And in that instant Bean read the flapper's look, the look she had
puzzled him with from their first meeting. It was like finally
understanding an oft-heard phrase in a foreign tongue. How luminous that
look was now! The simple look of proud and assured and most determined
ownership! It lay quietly on her face now as always. It was the look he
must ha