island.  A flirt, and engaged, too, was she?  No matter.  He wrecked himself with her, and they lived on mussels and edible roots and berries, and some canned stuff from the ship, and he built a hut of “native thatch,” and found a deposit of rubies, gathering bushels of them, and he became her affianced the very day the smoke of the rescuing steamer blackened the horizon.  And throughout an idyllic union they always thought rather regretfully of that island; they had had such a beautiful time there.  And his oldest son, who was left-handed, pitched a ball that was the despair of every batter in both leagues!

Such had been the devastation of that one drooping glance.  This vision, enjoyed while he ate of the luncheon brought to him, might have been prolonged.  He hadn’t remembered a quarter of the delightful contingencies that arise when the right man and woman are wrecked on an island, but he looked up from his plate to find Breede regarding him and his abundant food with a look of such stony malignance that he could eat no more—­Breede with his glass of diluted milk and one intensely hygienic cracker!

But during pauses in the afternoon’s work the island vision became blurred by the singular energies of the flapper.  What did she mean by looking at him that way?  There was something ominous about it.  He had to admit that in some occult way she benumbed his will power.  He did not believe he would dare be wrecked on a desert island with the other one, if the flapper knew about it.

At last there was surcease of Breede.

“Have ’em ready in the morning,” he directed, referring to the letters he had dictated.  “G’wout ‘n’ ’muse yourself when you get time,” he added hospitably.  “Now I got to hobble to my room.  If you see any women outside, tell ’em g’wan downstairs if they don’t want to hear me.”

He stood balanced on one foot, a stout cane in either hand.  Bean opened the door, but the hall was vacant.  Breede grunted and began his progress.  It was, perhaps, not more than reasonably vocal considering his provocation.

Bean uncovered a typewriter and sat to it, his note-book before him.  For a moment he reverted to the island vision.  They could be attacked by savages from another island, and he would fight them off with the rifles he had salvaged from the ship. She would reload the weapons for him, and bind up his head when he was wounded.  He fought the last half of the desperate battle with a stained bandage over his brow.

There was a sharp rap at the door and it opened before he could call.  The flapper entered.

“Don’t let me disturb you,” she said, and walked to the window, as if she found the place only scenically interesting.

Bean murmured politely and began upon his letters.  The flapper was relentless.  She sat in her father’s chair and fastened the old look of implacable kindness upon him.  He beat the keys of the machine.  The flapper was disturbing him atrociously.