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for so long, it would have been unkind to take you away this morning.”

“I’ve got to leave you pretty soon, anyhow, after I’ve seen Mrs. Taylor, because I have to hunt up another chauffeur for him. That won’t be hard. I’m very anxious to do it, because till that’s done we can’t get married. How soon will you marry me, anyhow, ma petite chérie?”

“Oh, Tony———”

She paused, very pink.

“Well?”

“It seems to me———”

“Go on.”

“It seems to me—there isn’t much use in wasting time.”

“Pamela, you’re adorable. But you mustn’t say things like that to me while we’re sitting in the Botanical Gardens, it’s not fair. You’re not a housemaid, if I am a chauffeur, and if I kissed you now you’d be scandalised.”

Pamela looked about her thoughtfully. “It is rather public.”

“Just a little, worse luck. But don’t look like that again, it’s not safe. . . . Very well, I’ll go and see about it to-day. I don’t know what is the soonest we can; you’re a minor, you see, and that complicates things.”

“But you’re not marrying me against my will.”

“I hope not. All the same there may be difficulties. By the way, would you mind being married in a registry office? It’s much simpler.”

“No,” said Pamela decidedly, but with a shake in her voice.

“It’s a thousand pities; you’d look divine in the regulation trappings; but I don’t think we can manage them very well. Besides, for awhile we shall have to be severely economical, you know. Afterwards, when we go to England———”