“Good Lord! ... there’s nothing in it, is there?”

“I shouldn’t think so; but you know how silly it is in a place like this ... and she’s a very pretty girl, and oh, so dreadfully genteel!”

“That’ll save him, then!  Dairymaids are far more dangerous.  But, as you say, it doesn’t do....  I think there’s something in the Canadian plan,” he added to himself.  He took up the lists of accounts he had been busy on when first interrupted by Nicky and began to examine them.  He had to hold them far away from his eyes and even then to pucker up his lids before he could quite make them out.  Georgie watched him.

“You know, Ishmael, you want specs,” she said suddenly.  “I’m sure of it!  I’ve been watching you for ages and you never seem able to take in anything unless it’s a mile off.  And all your headaches, too....”

Ishmael thought angrily:  “Is there anything women won’t say outright?  Can’t she see I’ve been sick with terror about my eyes for months, and that’s why I haven’t done anything about it?” Aloud he only said gruffly:  “I’m all right!”

“But you aren’t!” persisted Georgie.  “What’s the good of saying you are when you aren’t?”

“Well, if you like I’ll go and see an oculist next time I go to Plymouth,” promised Ishmael.  “Will that do you?”

“I like that.  It’s not for me.  I only said,” began Georgie indignantly; but he pulled her head to him and held it there a moment before kissing her.

“Run away, there’s a dear!” he said.  “Eyes or no eyes, I’ve got to get this done, and you know you can’t add two and two, so it’s no good saying you’ll stay and help.”

“I can make two and two make five, which is the whole art of life,” retorted Georgie, laughing.  “But as there’s the dinner to order, and as you could no more do that than I could see to the accounts, I’ll go.”  She bent over him, and wickedly parted his hair away from a thin patch that was coming on the crown of his head before kissing him full upon it.

When she was gone Ishmael let the accounts lie untouched before him, and, getting up, he crossed to the window and stood looking out.  He heard the sound of wheels and hoofs coming along the lane at the side of the garden wall, and the next moment saw the head of Nicky’s leader, apparently protesting violently, come beyond the angle of the wall.  Nicky was evidently trying to turn it in the direction of the main road, but the leader had other views, and gave expression to them by sitting down suddenly on his haunches, with his white-stockinged forelegs struck straight out, his fiddle-head, with the white blaze between his wicked eyes, looking round over his shoulder at the invisible Nicky, whose remarks came floating up to Ishmael on the breeze.  Finally the leader was made to see the error of his ways, and the light dog-cart swung round the corner, and with a flourish of the whip and a clatter and a heart-catching swerve round the angle of the hedge Nicky’s tandem bore him swiftly down the road towards where the telegraph wires told of the way which led to Miss Polly Behenna.