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Page 58
"Of course," he answered, believing nevertheless that everything was all
wrong.
They had come swiftly to the country and now swept along a wide highway
that narrowed in perspective far and straight ahead of them. He watched
the road, grateful for the slight hypnotic effect of its lines running
toward him. He must play the waiting game.
"Here's the inn," said the flapper. They turned into a big green yard
and drew up at the steps of a rambling old house begirt with wide
piazzas on which tables were set. This would be the nice place where he
was to give them tea and things. They descended from the car, and he was
aware that they pleasantly drew the attention of many people who were
already there having tea and things: the big car and Grandma and the
flapper in her little old rag and Nap still panting ecstatically, and,
not least, himself in dignified and a little bit different apparel,
lightly grasping the yellow stick and the quite as yellow gloves. It was
horribly open and conspicuous, he felt; still, getting out of a car like
that--and the flapper's little old rag was something that had to be
looked at--he was drunk with it. Following a waiter to a table he felt
that the floor was not meeting his feet.
They were seated! The shocking affair was on. The waiter inclined a
deferential ear to the gentleman from the large and costly car.
"Tea and things," said the gentleman with a very bored manner indeed,
and turned to rebuke the rare and costly dog with harsh words for his
excessive emotion at the prospect of food.
The waiter manifested delight at the command; one could not help 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--"
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