knowledge which is called "knowledge of the world," his inbred delicacy
of mind revealed to him the serious difficulty of the position which his
friend was asking him to occupy as plainly as if he was looking at it
through the warily-gathered experience of society of a man of twice his
age.

"Can't you write to her now, Geoffrey?" he asked.

"What's the good of that?"

"Consider for a minute, and you will see. You have trusted me with a
very awkward secret. I may be wrong--I never was mixed up in such a
matter before--but to present myself to this lady as your messenger
seems exposing her to a dreadful humiliation. Am I to go and tell her
to her face: 'I know what you are hiding from the knowledge of all the
world;' and is she to be expected to endure it?"

"Bosh!" said Geoffrey. "They can endure a deal more than you think.
I wish you had heard how she bullied me, in this very place. My good
fellow, you don't understand women. The grand secret, in dealing with a
woman, is to take her as you take a cat, by the scruff of the neck--"

"I can't face her--unless you will help me by breaking the thing to
her first. I'll stick at no sacrifice to serve you; but--hang it!--make
allowances, Geoffrey, for the difficulty you are putting me in. I am
almost a stranger; I don't know how Miss Silvester may receive me,
before I can open my lips."

Those last words touched the question on its practical side. The
matter-of-fact view of the difficulty was a view which Geoffrey