“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 day is over.”
“That's not the question, Mr. Cutbill. Your personal powers of captivation no one disputes, if only they get a fair field for their exercise; but what we fear is that Mr. Sedley, being the hot-tempered, hasty man he is, will not give you this chance. My brother has twice already been on the verge of a rupture with him for having acted on his own independent judgment. I believe nothing but his regard for poor dear papa would have made him forgive Augustus; and when I tell you that in the present critical state of our cause his desertion of us would be fatal, I am sure you will do anything to avert such a calamity.”
“Let us meet, Miss Ellen; let us dine together once—I only ask once—and if I don't borrow money from him before he takes his bedroom candle, you may scratch Tom Cutbill, and put him off 'the course' forever. What does that impatient shrug of the shoulders mean? Is it as much as to say, 'What a conceited snob it is!' eh?”