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 arm and whirled him about to stand with his back to hers.

“There!” said the flapper tensely, her eyes staring ahead.  “There!”

“You’re scrooching!” accused the Demon.

“Not a bit!—­and see how square his shoulders are!” She turned to point out this grace of the animal.

“Ever take any drugs?  Ever get any habits like that?” queried the Demon.  Plainly Bean’s confession to an unusual virtue had aroused her suspicion.  He might be a drug fiend!

He faltered wretchedly, wishing Breede would send for him.

“I—­well, I used to be made to take sulphur and molasses every spring ... but I never kept it up after I left home.”