The Squire, anticipating the trial of luncheon with a strange
literary man, had dealt with the case tactfully from his own standpoint.
County society might have made the guest feel like a fish out of water;
and, except for the American critic and the local lawyer and doctor,
worthy middle-class people who fitted into the picture, he had kept it
as a family party. He was a widower, and when the meal had been laid
out on the garden table, it was Barbara who presided as hostess. She had
the new poet on her right hand and it made her very uncomfortable.
She had practically offered that fallacious jongleur money, and it did
not make it easier to offer him lunch.

"The whole countryside's gone mad," announced the Squire,
by way of the latest local news. "It's about this infernal
legend of ours."

"I collect legends," said Paynter, smiling.

"You must remember I haven't yet had a chance to collect yours.
And this," he added, looking round at the romantic coast,
"is a fine theater for anything dramatic."

"Oh, it's dramatic in its way," admitted Vane, not without
a faint satisfaction. "It's all about those things over there
we call the peacock trees--I suppose, because of the queer color
of the leaf, you know, though I have heard they make a shrill noise
in a high wind that's supposed to be like the shriek of a peacock;
something like a bamboo in the botanical structure, perhaps.
Well, those trees are supposed to have been brought over
from Barbary by my ancestor Sir Walter Vane, one of the