think me very horrible, wasting your
time. And please say no, if you'd rather.

"Yours sincerely,

"NEDDA FREELAND."

The answer came:

"DEAR MISS FREELAND:

"Delighted. But if very bothery, better save time and ink, and have a
snack of lunch with me to-morrow at the Elgin restaurant, close to
the British Museum. Quiet and respectable. No flowers by request. One
o'clock.

"Very truly yours,

"GILES CUTHCOTT."

Putting on 'no flowers' and with a fast-beating heart, Nedda, went on
her first lonely adventure. To say truth she did not know in the least
how ever she was going to ask this almost strange man about a girl of
doubtful character. But she kept saying to herself: 'I don't care--he
has nice eyes.' And her spirit would rise as she got nearer, because,
after all, she was going to find things out, and to find things out was
jolly. The new warmth and singing in her heart had not destroyed, but
rather heightened, her sense of the extraordinary interest of all things
that be. And very mysterious to her that morning was the kaleidoscope of
Oxford Street and its innumerable girls, and women, each going about her
business, with a life of her own that was not Nedda's. For men she had
little use just now, they had acquired a certain insignificance, not
having gray-black eyes that smoked and flared, nor Harris tweed suits
that smelled delicious. Only once on her journey from Oxford Circus she
felt the sense of curiosity rise in her, in relation to a man, and this
was when she asked a policeman at Tottenham Court Road, and he put his
head down fully a foot to listen to her. So huge, so broad, so red in
the face, so stolid, it seemed wonderful to her that he paid her any
attention! If he were a human being, could she really be one, too? But
that, after all, was no more odd than everything. Why, for instance, the
spring flowers in that woman's basket had been born; why that high white
cloud floated over; why and what was Nedda Freeland?

At the entrance of the little restaurant she saw Mr. Cuthcott waiting.
In a brown suit, with his pale but freckled face, and his gnawed-at,
sandy moustache, and his eyes that looked out and beyond, he was
certainly no beauty. But Nedda thought: 'He's even nicer than I
remembered, and I'm sure he knows a lot.'

At first, to be sitting opposite to him, in front of little plates
containing red substances and small fishes, was so exciting that she
simply listened to his rapid, rath