by that mere gesture, doing a destructive act and could send a blight
upon the garden.

The strained and almost painful silence was broken by the voice
of Squire Vane, loud even while it was still distant.

"We couldn't make out where you'd got to, Barbara," he said.
"This is my friend, Mr. Cyprian Paynter." The next moment
he saw the stranger and stopped, a little puzzled. It was only
Mr. Cyprian Paynter himself who was equal to the situation.
He had seen months ago a portrait of the new Cornish poet
in some American literary magazine, and he found himself,
to his surprise, the introducer instead of the introduced.

"Why, Squire," he said in considerable astonishment, "don't you
know Mr. Treherne? I supposed, of course, he was a neighbor."

"Delighted to see you, Mr. Treherne," said the Squire,
recovering his manners with a certain genial confusion.
"So pleased you were able to come. This is Mr. Paynter---my
daughter," and, turning with a certain boisterous embarrassment,
he led the way to the table under the tree.

Cyprian Paynter followed, inwardly revolving a puzzle which had taken
even his experience by surprise. The American, if intellectually
an aristocrat, was still socially and subconsciously a democrat.
It had never crossed his mind that the poet should be counted
lucky to know the squire and not the squire to know the poet.
The honest patronage in Vane's hospitality was something which made
Paynter feel he was, after all, an exile in England.