In his times of leisure they walked through the shaded aisles of those too well-kept grounds, or they sat in seats of twisted iron and honored the setting sun with their notice.  They did not talk much, yet they were acutely aware of each other.  Sometimes the silence was prolonged to awkwardness, and one of them would jestingly offer a penny for the other’s thoughts.  This made a little talk, but not much, and sometimes increased the awkwardness; it was so plain that what they were thinking of could not be told for money.

They did tell their wonderful ages and their full names and held their hands side by side to note the astonishing differences between the “lines.”  A palmist had revealed something quite amazing to the flapper, but she refused to tell what it was, with a significance that left Bean in a tumultuous and pleasurable whirl of cowardice.  Their hands flew apart rather self-consciously.  Bean felt himself a scoundrel—­“leading on” a young thing like that who was engaged to another.  It was flirting of the most reprehensible sort.  But there was his dual nature; a strain of the errant Corsican had survived to debauch him.

And if she didn’t want to be “led on,” he thought indignantly, why did she so persistently put herself in the way of it?  She was always there!  Serve her right, then!  Serve the Hollins boy right, too!

Grandma eyed them shrewdly with her Demon’s glance of questioning, but did nothing to keep them apart.  On the contrary, she would often brazenly leave them together after conducting them to remote nooks.  She made no flimsy excuses.  She seemed indifferent to the fate of this tender bud left at the mercy of one whom she affected to regard as a seasoned roue.

There were four days of this regrettable philandering.  On the fifth Breede manifested alarming symptoms of recovery.  He ceased to be the meek man he was under actual suffering, and was several times guilty of short-worded explosions that should never have reached the ears of good women.

Said the flapper in tones of genuine dismay that evening: 

“I’m afraid Pops is going to be well enough to go to town to-morrow!”

Even Grandma, pacing a bit of choice turf near at hand, rehearsing her lines in the mob scene, was shocked at this.

“You are a selfish little pig!” she called.

“But he will have to go away, if Pops goes,” said the flapper, in magnificent extenuation.

The words told.  Grandma seemed to see things in a new light.

“You come with me,” she commanded; “both of you.”

Ahead of them she led the way to that pergola where Bean had once overheard their talk.

“Sit down,” said Grandma, and herself sat between them.

“You are a couple of children,” she began accusingly.  “Why, when I was your age—­” She broke off suddenly, and for some moments stared into the tracery of vines.

“When I was your age,” she began once more, but in a curiously altered voice—­“Lord!  What a time of years!” She spoke slowly, softly, as one who would evoke phantoms.  “Why, at your age,” she turned slightly to the flapper, “I’d been married two years, and your father was crawling about under my feet as I did the housework.”