"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 but clear, a fine and vibrant humming, the distant music of wings! The faint, steady pulsing was drawing nearer and nearer--nearer still--it must be flying quite high. The hateful letters scattered about her as she sprang to the open window--no, it was too high to see, and too dark, though the sky was powdered with stars--but she could hear it clearly, hovering and throbbing like some gigantic bird. It must be almost directly over her head, if she could only see it. "It sounds--it sounds the way a humming-bird would look through a telescope," she said half aloud, and Rosemary murmured sleepily but courteously, "What, Janet?" "Just an airplane--no, gone now. It sounded like a bird. Didn't you hear it?" "No," replied Rosemary drowsily. "We get so used to the old things that we don't even notice them any more. Queer time to be flying!" "It sounded rather--beautiful," said Janet, her face still turned to the stars. "Far off, but so clear and sure. I wonder--I wonder whether it will be coming back?"