“Ah, Beauty.” He grinned up at me. “Do you wish your raspberries back?”

I crossed my arms over my chest, determined to pin him down. “No. I wish to know your views on the subject.”

He looked at me and then at Mr. Lanman, raising a hand to shield his eyes as he considered us. I had caught him.

“Beauty is genius,” he answered seriously.

“Ha!” Mr. Lanman guffawed behind me. “Rossetti! I detest Mr. Rossetti.”

“Rossetti?” I asked.

“Mr. Dante Rossetti,” Bart answered, “a man—”

“Who wrote this about his mistress,” Jonathan broke in, and then began to recite dismissively:

“Beauty like hers is genius. Not the call
Of Homer’s or of Dante’s heart sublime,—
Not Michael’s hand furrowing the zones of time,—
Is more with compassed mysteries musical;”

There he halted, his disdain a bit heavy in the air.

“I have not heard that poem,” I mused.

“And what is so detestable in that, Jonathan?” Bart Hunnowell set down the bowl.

“Detestable? He sets the creations of great masters beside a single woman and finds them wanting.”

“But he is right: Beauty is caught—it is not made.” To my surprise, Bart had come to stand quite close, drawn intently to the conversation. “It is but a glance, quicksilver—the flash of fire before it is gone.” He had both hands on his hips.

“Yes, but that quicksilver, as you call it, does not understand itself.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Rossetti sets a standard for beauty based on mystery—on the incomprehensibility of a woman he loves.”

“And should the beloved be other than incomprehensible?” Mr. Hunnowell had shifted the talk, his whole body gone quite still.

“I should hope,” Mr. Lanman declared, “to know and understand thoroughly the nature of the beloved.”

“I should never wish such a thing,” Bart Hunnowell replied quietly.

“Why?” My girlish voice sounded a little odd cast in between them.

“When my beloved is incomprehensible, she is endless,” he said. “And I would follow her into that blank unknown.”

“Oh,” said I. Mr. Hunnowell had answered me as if I were not a marriageable girl whose head might spin at such talk of love. He had answered me with passion, with passion for an idea. I felt suddenly that I stood alone in a quite capacious room and the air was lovely.

Jonathan Lanman coughed. “Perhaps Miss Thomas would like her berries, Mr. Hunnowell.”

It broke the spell. He looked at me and smiled. “Miss Thomas”—he stooped and picked up the bowl—“answer me this first.”

“What is it?”

“How many berries are there in this bowl?” He spoke quite low, as if we were in secret negotiation.

“What does it signify?” I did not look at his face, but kept my gaze upon his hands around the porcelain.

“Ten? Thirty? A score?” There was laughter in his voice.

I did look straight at him then. “What is it you wish, Mr. Hunnowell?”