CHAPTER I


Horace Jewdwine had made the most remarkable of his many remarkable
discoveries. At least he thought he had. He could not be quite sure,
which was his excuse for referring it to his cousin Lucia, whose
instinct (he would not call it judgement) in these matters was
infallible--strangely infallible for so young a girl. What, he
wondered, would she say to Savage Keith Rickman?

On Saturday, when he first came down into Devonshire, he would have
been glad to know. But to-day, which was a Tuesday, he was not
interested in Rickman. To eat strawberries all morning; to lie out in
the hammock all afternoon, under the beach-tree on the lawn of Court
House; to let the peace of the old green garden sink into him; to look
at Lucia and forget, utterly forget, about his work (the making of
discoveries), that was what he wanted. But Lucia wanted to talk, and
to talk about Rickman earnestly as if he were a burning question, when
even lying in the hammock Jewdwine was so hot that it bothered him to
talk at all.

He was beginning to be sorry that he had introduced him--the exciting
topic, that is to say, not the man; for Rickman you could scarcely
introduce, not at any rate to Lucia Harden.

"Well, Lucia?" He pronounced her name in the Italian manner,
"Loo-chee-a," with a languid stress on the vowels, and his tone