“Mean it? I mean it as I never meant anything else. Put that little ear of yours down to my lips, Mamie. I want to tell you something.”

“What?” asked Mamie, her eyes luminous.

“Put your ear down.”

And Mamie bent a pink ear to his lips.

“I love you!” he whispered into it, and kissed it.

Again a quick breath shook that gentle bosom—a breath of sheerest ecstasy—then, with a quick movement, Mamie turned her head and laid her lips to his.

“And I you!” she said. “And, oh, Allan, you have made me happy!”

“Nothing to what I am.”

“Oh, yes,” she contradicted, seriously. “Much happier. You see, I never thought that you—that I—”

“Well, go on.”