ld I am.
How hard and tired and useless? No--no a thousand times. In a little
while we will wake up and find that we were dreaming."

That had brought him to her swifter than Fate, triumphant mischief
in every line of his exultant face. "Just let those damned old cups
slip from your palsied fingers, will you? I'm goin' to take your
honourable age for a little country air--it may keep you out of the
grave for a few days longer. Never can tell! No use your scowlin'
like that--the car's outside, and the big chief says to be off with
you. Says you have no more colour than a banshee, and not half the
life--can't grasp the fact that it's just chronic antiquity. Fasten
the collar about your throat--no, higher! Darlin', darlin', think of
havin' a whole rippin' day to ourselves. You're glad, too, aren't you,
my little stubborn saint?"

Oh, that joyous and heart-breaking voice, running on and on--it made
all the other voices that she had ever heard seem colourless and
unreal--

"Darlin' idiot, what do I care how old you are? Thirty, hey? Almost
old enough to be an ancestor! Look at me--no, look at me! Dare you
to say that you aren't mad about me!"

Mad about him--mad, mad! She lifted her hands to her ears, but she
could no more shut out the exultant voice now than she could on that
windy afternoon.

"Other fellow got tired of you, did he? Good luck for us, what?
You're a fearfully tiresome person, darlin'. It's goin' to take me
nine-tenths of eternity to tell you how tiresome you are. Give a
chap a chance, won't you? The tiresomest thing about you is the way
you leash up that dimple of yours. No, by George, there it is! Janie,
look at me----"

She touched the place where the leashed dimple had hidden with a
delicate and wondering finger--of all Jerry's gifts to her the most
miraculous had been that small fugitive. Exiled now, forever and
forever.

"Are you comin' down to White Orchards next week-end? I'm off for
France on the twelfth and you've simply got to meet my people.
You'll be insane about 'em--Rosemary's the most beguilin'
flibbertigibbet, and I can't wait to see you bein' a kind of an
elderly grandmother to her. What a bewitchin' little grandmother
you're goin' to be one of these days----"

Oh, Jerry! Oh, Jerry, Jerry! She twisted in her chair, her face
suddenly a small mask of incredulous terror. No, no, it wasn't true,
it wasn't true--never--never--never! And then, for the first time,
she heard it. Far off