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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, for ever and for ever.