--what was it? He
deemed that he knew.

"Tommy Hollins coming to play," she vouchsafed in explanation of the
racquet she carried. "Are you glad to go?"

"Glad to see my dog again." He smiled as a man of the world. He was on
the verge of coquetry, now that he knew it to be safe.

"We'll bring him along too, next time."

"Oh, the next time!" He put it carelessly aside.

"You'll be out again, soon enough. I simply know Pops is going to have
another bad spell--in a week or so."

He could have sworn that the eyes of Breede's daughter gleamed with cold
anticipatory malice. He shuddered for Breede. And he wished Tommy
Hollins well of his bargain. Flirt, indeed! All alike!

"Chubbins!" called the unconscious father from afar.

"Yes, Pops!" She gripped his hand with a well-muscled fervour. "Oh,
he'll have another in a little while, don't you worry!" And she was off,
with this evil in her heart, to a father but now convalescent.

Marvelling, he walked on to the Demon's ambuscade. She pounced upon him
from behind a half-opened door.

"I want to say one word, young man. Oh, you needn't think I don't see
the way things are going. I'm not blind if I am seventy-six! If you're
the tender and innocent thing you say you are, you look out for
yourself. I know you all! If you don't break out one time you do
another. I'd a good deal rather you'd had it over before now and put it
all behind you--don't interrupt--but you're sound and clean as far as I
can see, and you've got a good situation. I don't say it couldn't be
worse. But if you are--well, you see that you _stay_ that way. Don't try
to tell me. I've seen enough of men in my time--"

He broke away from her at Breede's call. The flapper jerked her head
twice at him, very neatly, as the car passed the tennis court. She was
beginning a practise volley with Tommy Hollins, who was disporting
himself like a young colt.

"Chubbins!" he thought. Not a bad name for her, though it had come
queerly from Breede. For the first time he was pricked with the needle
of suspicion that Hollins might not be the right man for the flapper.
Hearing her called "Chubbins" somehow made it seem different. Maybe
Hollins, who seemed all of twenty, wouldn't "make her happy." He thought
it was something that the family ought to consider very seriously. He
was conscious of a willingness to consider it himself, as a friend of
the family and a well-wisher of Chubbins.

* * * *