"Sweetheart!" He rose also and kissed her, and then they walked slowly up the path, through the archway, and stopped again under the beech. "I shall return in seven days," said Gerald, anxious to go, yet loth to depart, "only be silent. Live as you have hitherto lived, and----" "I can never do that, my dearest," she said, flushing, "the world is all changed. You are my world! you are my---- Oh!" she broke down. Haskins folded her in his arms, and their lips met in one last long kiss. Then he left her, silently. That was true wisdom, for a single word might have detained him for ever in that enchanted garden. CHAPTER VIII. LEGAL ADVICE. "It's nutty, but not what I call top hole straight!" "Mr. Macandrew, I am consulting you professionally, so I must ask you to use the King's English!" "It can't explain my feelings, Jerry--it can't indeed. What am I to say when you tell me that you have fallen in love in five minutes." "You loved Charity when you first set eyes on her, Tod." "That's different!" snapped the solicitor. "She's an angel! It's only right to love an angel like winking when you spot her." "I quite agree with you, and so I loved Mavis." "Is this girl pretty?" Haskins smiled to himself, as he had not yet informed Tod of the marvelous resemblance between the dancer and the recluse. "Yes, she is pretty!" he said calmly. "Huh!" from Tod, "that doesn't sound enthusiastic." "If you wish me to give details----" "No! No!" Macandrew looked alarmed. "None of your beastly blank verse. I understand that you wish to consult me professionally." "Well," replied Haskins leisurely, "I have been trying to ram that into your thick head for the last ten minutes." "Clients," retorted Tod, with dignity, "do not call their legal advisers silly cuckoo names!" He arranged his blotting-paper, flattened out a sheet of paper, and seized a pencil. "You have my best attention." Gerald grinned. Tod's professional airs were too absurd. All the same he knew that he could not come to a better man for advice. Also, Tod, being in love himself, was likely to be more sympathetic than a regular dry-as-dust lawyer. "One moment, Toddy," said Haskins, taking out a silver case, "I want to light a cigarette first. Have one?" "These," said the outraged Tod significantly, "are business hours." "So I should think from your ridiculously serious face. Nature intended you for a chubby Bacchus without any clothes, Toddy; but circumstance has stuffed you into a stupid little office to mislead people on points of law." "The office is capital," said Tod heatedly. "I pay a very high rent." "You are being cheated then." "I'll--I'll--I'll have a cigarette," ended Tod weakly. "It was too hot to argue."