"She's like her father there."
And Bean strolled off to enjoy a vision of himself defeating her purpose
to ensnare the Hollins youth. Once he would have considered it crass
presumption, but that was before a certain sarcophagus on the left bank
of the Nile had been looted of its imperial occupant. Now he merely
recalled a story about a King Cophetua and a beggar maid. It was a
comparison that would have intensely interested the flapper's mother,
who was this time regarding Bean through her glazed weapon as if he were
some queer growth the head gardener had brought from the conservatory.
Grandma deftly probed his past for affairs of the heart. She pointedly
had him alone, and her intimation was that he might talk freely, as to a
woman of understanding and broad sympathy. But Bean made a wretched mess
of it.
Certainly there had been "affairs." There was the girl in Chicago, two
doors down the street, whom he had once taken to walk in the park, but
only once, because she talked; the girl in the business college who had
pretty hair and always smiled when she looked at him; and another who,
he was almost sure, had sent him an outspoken valentine; yes, there had
been plenty of girls, but he hadn't bothered much about them.
And Grandma, plainly incredulous, averred that he was too deep for her.
Bean was on the point of inventing a close acquaintance with an actress,
which he considered would be scandalous enough to compel a certain
respect he seemed to find lacking in the old lady, but he saw quickly
that she would confuse and trip him with a few questions.
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