Bunker Bean Part 20

"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--"

[Ill.u.s.tration: In that instant Bean read the flapper's look, the look she had puzzled him with from their first meeting]

And in that instant Bean read the flapper's look, the look she had puzzled him with from their first meeting. It was like finally understanding an oft-heard phrase in a foreign tongue. How luminous that look was now! The simple look of proud and a.s.sured and most determined owners.h.i.+p! It lay quietly on her face now as always. It was the look he must have bestowed on his sh.e.l.l the first time he saw it. Owners.h.i.+p!

"--the point is," the Demon was saying terribly, "I don't believe in long engagements."

He had once been persuaded, yielding out of spineless bravado, to descend the shaft of a mine in a huge bucket. The sensations of that plunge were now reproduced. He looked up to the far circle of light that ever diminished as he went down and down.

"I don't believe in them either," said the flapper firmly. "They're perfectly no good."

"I never did believe in 'em," he heard himself saying. And added with firmness equal to the flapper's, "Silly!" He was wondering if they would ever pull him to the surface again; if the rope would break.

"Just what I think," chanted the flapper. "Silly, and then some!"

"Then some!" repeated the male being in helpless, terrified corroboration.

"Won't he ever come?" queried the Demon. "Oh, here he is!"

The waiter was neatly removing tea and things from the tray. Bean recalled how on that other occasion he had fearfully believed the earth would close upon him, how hope revived as he was precariously drawn upward, and what a novel view the earth's fair surface presented when he again stood firmly upon it.

It was the waiter who raised him from this other abyss where he had been like to perish, the waiter and the things, including tea: plates, forks, napkins, cups and saucers, tea and hot water, jam, biscuit, toast. There was something particularly rea.s.suring about that plate of nicely matched triangles of b.u.t.tered toast. It spoke of a sane and orderly world where you were never taken off your feet.

"How many lumps?" demanded the pouring flapper.

"Just as you like; I'm not fussy," he answered.

This was untrue. His preference in the matter was decided, but he could not remember what it was. Afterward he knew that he did not take sugar in his tea, but the flapper had sweetened it with three lumps. Grandma again addressed him, engaging his difficult attention with a brandished fragment of toast.

"I can't imagine how you were ever mad enough to think of it," she said, "but you were. I give you credit for that. And just let me tell you that you've won a treasure. Of course, I don't say you won't find her difficult now and then, but you mustn't be too overbearing; give in a bit now and then; 't won't hurt you. Remember she's got a will of her own, as well as you have. Don't try to ride rough-shod--"

"Oh, we've settled all _that_," broke in the flapper. "Haven't we?"

"We've settled all that," said Bean, grateful for the solid feel of a cup in his fingers.

"Don't be too domineering, that's all," warned the Demon. "She wouldn't put up with it."

"I understand all _that_," insisted Bean, resolutely seizing a fork for which he had no use. "I can look ahead!"

He began hurriedly to eat toast, hoping it would seem that he had more to say but was too hungry to say it.

"I know _you_," persisted the Demon. "Brow-beating, bound to have your own way, and, after all, she's nothing but a child."

"I'll _want_ him to have his own way," declared the child. "I'll see that he just perfectly gets it, too!"

"Give and take, that's my motto," he muttered, wondering if more toast would choke him.

"Be a row back there, of course," said Grandma, "but Julia's going to marry off the other child after her own heart, and it's only right for me to have a little say about this one. You're a better man than he is.

You have a good situation and he's just a waster; couldn't buy his own cigarettes if he had to work for the money, say nothing of his gloves and ties. Born to riches, born to folly, say I. Still, Julia will fuss just about so much. Of course, Jim--"

"Oh, poor old Pops!" The flapper gracefully destroyed him as a factor in the problem.

Bean was feeding toast to Nap, who didn't choke.

"She always has to come around though when the girl makes up her mind. I haven't had that child in my charge for nothing."

"I have a right to choose the--" The flapper broke her speech with tea.

"I have the _right_," she concluded defiantly.

Bean shuddered. He recalled the terrific remainder of that speech.

"I thought we better have this little talk," said Grandma, "and get everything understood."

"'S the only way to do," said Bean, wrinkling his forehead, "have everything clear."

"I had it all perfectly planned out long ago," said the flapper. "I don't _want_ a large place."

"Lots of trouble," conceded Bean. "Something always coming up," he added knowingly.

"Nice yard," said the flapper, "plenty of room for flowers and the tennis court, and I'll do the marketing when I motor in for you. They won't let me do it back there," she concluded with some acrimony; "and they get good and cheated and I'm perfectly glad of it. Eighteen cents a head for lettuce! I saw that very thing on a tag yesterday!"

"Rob you right and left," mumbled Bean. "All you can expect."

"Just leave it all to me," said the flapper with four of her double nods. "They'll soon learn better."

"Hardly seems as if it could all be true," ventured Bean in a genial effort at sanity.

"It's just perfectly true and true," insisted the flapper. "I knew it all the time." She placed the old relentless gaze upon him. He was hers.

"The beautiful, blind wants of youth!" said the Demon, who had been silent a long time, for her. "I remember--" But it seemed to come to nothing. She was silent again.

He paid the waiter.

"It was just as well to have this little talk," murmured Grandma as they arose.

The car throbbed before the steps. They were in and away. A reviving breeze swept them as the car gained speed. At least it partially revived one of them.

In the back seat he presently found a hand in his, but his own hand seemed no longer a part of him. He thought the serenity of the flapper was remarkable. She seemed to feel that nothing wonderful had happened.

There was something awful about that calm.