“Oh!  Have you got daughters?”

“Yes—­funny ones; older than you.”

“That’s why you understand, then”

Mr. Cuthcott smiled.  “They were a liberal education!”

And Nedda thought:  ‘Poor Dad, I wonder if I am!’

“Yes,” Mr. Cuthcott murmured, “who would think a gosling would ever become a goose?”

“Ah!” said Nedda eagerly, “isn’t it wonderful how things grow?”

She felt his eyes suddenly catch hold of hers.

“You’re in love!” he said.

It seemed to her a great piece of luck that he had found that out.  It made everything easy at once, and her words came out pell-mell.

“Yes, and I haven’t told my people yet.  I don’t seem able.  He’s given me something to do, and I haven’t much experience.”

A funny little wriggle passed over Mr. Cuthcott’s face.  “Yes, yes; go on!  Tell us about it.”

She took a sip from her glass, and the feeling that he had been going to laugh passed away.

“It’s about the daughter of a laborer, down there in Worcestershire, where he lives, not very far from Becket.  He’s my cousin, Derek, the son of my other uncle at Joyfields.  He and his sister feel most awfully strongly about the laborers.”

“Ah!” said Mr. Cuthcott, “the laborers!  Queer how they’re in the air, all of a sudden.”

“This girl hasn’t been very good, and she has to go from the village, or else her family have.  He wants me to find a place for her in London.”

“I see; and she hasn’t been very good?”

“Not very.”  She knew that her cheeks were flushing, but her eyes felt steady, and seeing that his eyes never moved, she did not mind.  She went on: 

“It’s Sir Gerald Malloring’s estate.  Lady Malloring—­won’t—­”

She heard a snap.  Mr. Cuthcott’s mouth had closed.

“Oh!” he said, “say no more!”

‘He can bite nicely!’ she thought.

Mr. Cuthcott, who had begun lightly thumping the little table with his open hand, broke out suddenly: 

“That petty bullying in the country!  I know it!  My God!  Those prudes, those prisms!  They’re the ruination of half the girls on the—­” He looked at Nedda and stopped short.  “If she can do any kind of work, I’ll find her a place.  In fact, she’d better come, for a start, under my old housekeeper.  Let your cousin know; she can turn up any day.  Name?  Wilmet Gaunt?  Right you are!” He wrote it on his cuff.

Nedda rose to her feet, having an inclination to seize his hand, or stroke his head, or something.  She subsided again with a fervid sigh, and sat exchanging with him a happy smile.  At last she said: 

“Mr. Cuthcott, is there any chance of things like that changing?”

“Changing?” He certainly had grown paler, and was again lightly thumping the table.  “Changing?  By gum!  It’s got to change!  This d—­d pluto-aristocratic ideal!  The weed’s so grown up that it’s choking us.  Yes, Miss Freeland, whether from inside or out I don’t know yet, but there’s a blazing row coming.  Things are going to be made new before long.”