Still, it was not disagreeable to know that if he could only make up his mind to something very definite and irretrievable indeed, Court House would one day be his.  It was the only house in England that came up to his idea of what a country house should be.  A square Tudor building with two short, gable-ended wings, thrown out at right angles to its front; three friendly grey walls enclosing a little courtyard made golden all day long with sunshine from the south.  Court House was older than anything near it except Harmouth Bridge and the Parish Church.  Standing apart in its own green lands, it looked older than the young red earth beneath it, a mass upheaved from the grey foundations of the hills.  Its face, turned seawards, was rough and pitted with the salt air; thousands upon thousands of lichens gave it a greenish bloom, with here and there a rusty patch on groin and gable.  It contained the Harden Library, the Harden Library, one of the finest private collections in the country.  It contained also his cousin Lucia.

He had always loved Court House, but not always his cousin Lucia.  The scholarly descendant of a long line of scholars, Jewdwine knew that he had been a favourite with his grandfather, Sir Joseph Harden, the Master of Lazarus, he was convinced (erroneously) that he was a Harden by blood and by temperament, and of course if he had only been a Harden by name, and not a Jewdwine, Court House and the great Harden Library would have been his instead of his cousin Lucia’s.  He knew that his grandfather had wished them to be his.  Lucia’s mother was dead long ago; and when his uncle Sir Frederick definitely renounced the domestic life, Lucia and Lucia alone stood between him and the inheritance that should have been his.  This hardly constituted a reason for being fond of Lucia.

His grandfather had wished him to be fond of her.  But not until Jewdwine was five and twenty and began to feel the primordial manhood stirring in his scholarly blood did he perceive that his cousin Lucia was not a hindrance but a way.  The way was so obvious that it was no wonder that he did not see it all at once.  He did not really see it till Sir Joseph sent for him on his death-bed.

“There’s been some mistake, Horace,” Sir Joseph had then said.  “Your mother should have been the boy and your uncle Frederick the girl.  Then Lucia would have been a Jewdwine, and you a Harden.”

And Horace had said, “I’m afraid I can’t be a Harden, sir; but is there any reason why Lucia—?”

“I was coming to that,” said Sir Joseph.  But he never came to it.  Horace, however, was in some way aware that the same idea had occurred to both of them.  Whatever it was, the old man had died happy in it.

There was no engagement, only a something altogether intangible and vague, understood to be an understanding.  And Lucia adored him.  If she had not adored him he might have been urged to something irretrievable and definite.  As it was, there was no need, and nothing could have been more soothing than the golden concord of that understanding.