“’S got to stop right now,” declared Bean, rising.  “Wipe that egg off your face, and let’s get out of here.”

“London,” she suggested brightly.  “Granny has always—­”

“No London!” he broke in, visibly returning to the Corsican or upstart manner.  “And no Grandma, no Pops, no Moms!  You and me—­us—­understand what I mean?  Think I’m going to have my wife sloshing around over there, voting, smashing windows, getting run in and sent to the island for thirty days.  No!  Not for little old George W. Me!”

“I never wanted to so very much,” confessed the flapper with surprising meekness.  “You tell where to go, then.”

Bean debated.  Baseball!  Perhaps there would be a game on the home grounds that day.  Paris might be playing London or St. Petersburg or Berlin or Venice.

“First we go see a ball game,” he said.

The flapper astounded him.

“I don’t think they have it over here—­baseball,” she observed.

No baseball?  She must be crazy.  He rang the bell.

The capable Swiss entered.  In less than ten minutes he was able to convince the amazed American that baseball was positively not played on the continent of Europe.  It was monstrous.  It put a different aspect upon Europe.

“Makes no difference where we go, then,” announced Bean.  “Just any little old last year’s place.  We’ll ’lope.”

“Ripping,” applauded the flapper, with brightening eyes.

“Hurry and dress.  I’ll get a little old car and we’ll beat it before they get back.  No time for trunk; take bag.”

Down in the office he found they made nothing of producing little old cars for the right people.  The car was there even as he was taking the precaution to secure a final assurance from the manager that Paris did not by any chance play London that day.

The two bags were installed in the ready car; then a radiant flapper beside an amateur upstart.  The driver desired instructions.

“Ally, ally!” directed Bean, waving a vague but potent hand.

“We’ve done it,” rejoiced the flapper.  “Serve the perfectly old taggers good and plenty right!”

Bean lifted a final gaze to the laurel-crowned Believer.  He knew that Believer’s secret now.

“What a stunning tie,” exclaimed the flapper.  “It just perfectly does something to you.”

“’S little old last year’s tie,” said her husband carelessly.

* * * * *

At six-thirty that evening they were resting on a balcony overlooking the garden of a hotel at Versailles.  Back of them in the little parlour a waiter was setting a most companionable small table for two.  Such little sounds as he made were thrilling.  They liked the hotel much.  Its management seemed to have been expecting them ever since the building’s erection, and to have reserved precisely that nest for them.