y,
'We must hide you somewhere for these three days.'"

"But he wouldn't see it, Nelly. He'd laugh at your delicate scruples; he
'd say, 'That's the one man in all Europe I 'm dying to meet.'"

"Nelly is quite right, notwithstanding," said Julia. "There is more
than one side to Mr. Cutbill's nature. He 'd like to be thought a very
punctilious gentleman fully as much as a very jocose companion. Make
him believe that in keeping out of sight here at this moment he will
be exercising a most refined delicacy--doing what nothing short of a
high-bred sensibility would ever have dreamed of,--and you 'll see
he 'll be as delighted with his part as ever he was with his coarse
drollery. And here he comes to test my theory about him."

As she spoke Cutbill came lounging up the garden walk, too busily
engaged in making a paper cigarette to see those in front of him.

"I'm sure, Mr. Cutbill, that cigarette must be intended for me," cried
Julia, "seeing all the pains you are bestowing on its manufacture."

"Ah, Miss Julia, if I could only believe that you'd let me corrupt your
morals to the extent of a pinch of Latakia--"

"Give me Sedley's letter, Gusty," said Nelly, "and leave the whole
arrangement to me. Mr. Cutbill, will you kindly let me have three
minutes of your company? I want a bit of advice from you." And she took
his arm as she spoke and led him down the garden. She wasted no time in
preliminaries, but at once came to the point, saying, "We're in what you
would call 'a fix' this morning, Mr. Cutbill: my brother's lawyer, Mr.
Sedley, is coming here most unexpectedly. We know that some unpleasant
passages have occurred between you and that gentleman, making a meeting
between you quite impossible; and in the great difficulty of the moment
I have charged myself with the solution of the embarrassment, and now
begin to see that without your aid I am powerless. Will you help me;
that is, will you advise with or for me?"

"Of course I will; but, first of all, where's the difficulty you speak
of? I 'd no more mind meeting this man--sitting next him at dinner,
if you like--than I would an old creditor--and I have a good many of
them--that I never mean to pay."

"We never doubted _your_ tact, Mr. Cutbill," said she, with a strong
emphasis on the pronoun.

"If so, then the matter is easy enough. Tact always serves for two. If
_I_ be the man you take me for, that crabbed old fellow will love me
like a brother before the first