osity. He always felt that the young
instinctively knew so much more than he did.

"I liked him awfully. He was like a dog."

"Ah!" said Felix, "he IS like a dog--very honest; he grins and runs about
the city, and might be inclined to bay the moon."

'I don't mind that,' Nedda thought, 'so long as he's not "superior."'

"He's very human," Felix added.

And having found out that he lived in Gray's Inn, Nedda thought: 'I will;
I'll ask him.'

To put her project into execution, she wrote this note:
"DEAR MR. CUTHCOTT:

"You were so kind as to tell me you wouldn't mind if I bothered you about
things. I've got a very bothery thing to know what to do about, and I
would be so glad of your advice. It so happens that I can't ask my
father and mother. I hope you won't 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