“A single one.” Something soft crept forward from his tone.

I raised my voice and waved my hand grandly. “You may have one—choose your pleasure.”

He reached into the bowl and picked out a large berry. Then he bowed and put the whole bowl at my feet, and as he rose, he took my hand in his and peeled open my fist to put the raspberry in the middle of my palm.

“For you, Miss Thomas, a keepsake from my morning’s harvest.” And then he turned and strolled down the lawn toward the pier.

“He is something of a puzzle,” Jonathan Lanman observed from the top of the stairs.

“Yes,” I said, my eyes on Bart Hunnowell’s retreating back, “he is.” And I did not turn immediately round, my hand still holding the berry at its center.

“Hunnowell,” Jonathan continued. “I have done some business with his father.”

I glanced back at him, determined to return to the conversation we had begun earlier and clarify what I had meant about beauty. But his head was now tipped back in reflection, his fingers playing among his blond whiskers, and I saw he had vanished from this scene, become suddenly an office man. Disappointed, I crossed my arms over my chest and scraped the toe of my boot upon the stair, not unused to this masculine habit of disappearing from intelligent conversation at the first mention of business, as if a pair of well-shod heels had clicked smartly together in the man’s head.

“Though he does not hold a candle to your father,” he said aloud.

I stared at him, pleased and surprised. The man had not vanished at all.

“Of course not,” I answered. “My father is the greatest of men.”

He smiled at my hyperbole. “How fortunate for you.”

“Indeed,” I replied. And then, not liking to lose this easy informality, I pushed forward. “Tell me of your own father.”

Jonathan Lanman turned back to face the water. “He died when I was very young—too young to have but one memory.”

“What is it?”

He shook his head and then looked at me. “It is nothing, an insignificance.”

“Surely not if it is your only recollection.” Still I probed, though I could see the questions pressed a bit too hard upon him. Again he shrugged.

“He stood against the window, very tall. And he was holding out to me a piece of sugar candy.”

“And did you take it?”

Now he smiled sadly at me. “I do not recall.”

I did not speak again, flooded suddenly with the image of my own father seated across from me in the schoolroom and then, peculiarly, of the warmth of his breath as he leaned across me, pointing up mistakes in my translations.

“I should very much like to live up to his name,” Jonathan said quietly.

“His name?”

“Yes. My name.”

“I am sincerely sorry for you, Mr. Lanman,” I said softly.