Under his thumps the little plates had begun to rattle and leap.  And Nedda thought:  ‘I do like him.’

But she said anxiously: 

“You believe there’s something to be done, then?  Derek is simply full of it; I want to feel like that, too, and I mean to.”

His face grew twinkly; he put out his hand.  And wondering a little whether he meant her to, Nedda timidly stretched forth her own and grasped it.

“I like you,” he said.  “Love your cousin and don’t worry.”

Nedda’s eyes slipped into the distance.

“But I’m afraid for him.  If you saw him, you’d know.”

“One’s always afraid for the fellows that are worth anything.  There was another young Freeland at your uncle’s the other night—­”

“My brother Alan!”

“Oh! your brother?  Well, I wasn’t afraid for him, and it seemed a pity.  Have some of this; it’s about the only thing they do well here.”

“Oh, thank you, no.  I’ve had a lovely lunch.  Mother and I generally have about nothing.”  And clasping her hands she added: 

“This is a secret, isn’t it, Mr. Cuthcott?”

“Dead.”

He laughed and his face melted into a mass of wrinkles.  Nedda laughed also and drank up the rest of her wine.  She felt blissful.

“Yes,” said Mr. Cuthcott, “there’s nothing like loving.  How long have you been at it?”

“Only five days, but it’s everything.”

Mr. Cuthcott sighed.  “That’s right.  When you can’t love, the only thing is to hate.”

“Oh!” said Nedda.

Mr. Cuthcott again began banging on the little table.  “Look at them, look at them!” His eyes wandered angrily about the room, wherein sat some few who had passed though the mills of gentility.  “What do they know of life?  Where are their souls and sympathies?  They haven’t any.  I’d like to see their blood flow, the silly brutes.”

Nedda looked at them with alarm and curiosity.  They seemed to her somewhat like everybody she knew.  She said timidly:  “Do you think our blood ought to flow, too?”

Mr. Cuthcott relapsed into twinkles.  “Rather!  Mine first!”

‘He is human!’ thought Nedda.  And she got up:  “I’m afraid I ought to go now.  It’s been awfully nice.  Thank you so very much.  Good-by!”

He shook her firm little hand with his frail thin one, and stood smiling till the restaurant door cut him off from her view.

The streets seemed so gorgeously full of life now that Nedda’s head swam.  She looked at it all with such absorption that she could not tell one thing from another.  It seemed rather long to the Tottenham Court Road, though she noted carefully the names of all the streets she passed, and was sure she had not missed it.  She came at last to one called poultry.  ‘Poultry!’ she thought; ‘I should have remembered that—­Poultry?’ And she laughed.  It was so sweet and feathery a laugh that the driver of an old four-wheeler stopped his horse.  He was old and anxious-looking, with a gray beard and deep folds in his red cheeks.