He had turned his eyes slowly upon her in the course of her long speech--she had spoken her words so rapidly and with such animation it did not seem so very long--and by the time she had ended, which she had with a little flush, he was gazing at her with an expression that was bordering upon wonderment. In the pause that followed, his expression had become lighted up with admiration. Then he looked away from her, and rubbed the tip of his chin with the tip of one forefinger. He became very thoughtful, and the break in their conversation was so long as to assume the proportions of an irreparable rupture. It was, however, nothing of the sort. It was long only because he found it necessary to review and to revise some of the most highly cherished beliefs of his life, and the young woman beside him was fully aware that this was so. She had no mind to obtrude upon his course of thought. At last he spoke. “I wonder if you could tell me if I really did think myself a juggins,” he said. “Why do you ask me such a question, Mr. Wingfield?” “Because you have opened my eyes to so many things. You have shown that you can read me like a book.” “Before I talk to you about reading you like a book, I will try to answer your question. I believe that from the first you have been in contact with very foolish people--as foolish as the people at Framsby--it has been called ‘foolish Framsby’ before now.” “If not, we’ll call it so now. Go on.” “These people, I have an impression, assumed that because your grandfather so arranged things that you should not take over the property until you were twenty-seven, you were bound to be the sort of person your grandfather believed you would be, and they treated you accordingly, and you were content to accept yourself at their valuation.” He almost sprang out of his chair, making in the excitement of the moment a downward smash with his racket which, if it had taken place in the course of a set, would never have had a chance of being returned by an opponent. “Great Gloriana! you have hit the nail on the head!” he said. “I don’t know how you’ve come to know it, but you have come to know it; and now you’ve let me into the secret, and I’m hanged if it isn’t the most important secret of my life--it’s a revelation--that’s what it is! I’ve been now and again at the point of finding it out, but I never got so far. I don’t know how you came to make the discovery, but you have done it, and by the Lord Harry Augustus it has made a new man of me!” Suddenly he appeared to recover himself. He had spoken so excitedly that he had not only startled her, he had also drawn the attention of some one who was standing by the nearest of the courts, and that person--a stranger--was smiling. He dropped into his seat at once, saying, “I beg your pardon; I’m making rather a fool of myself; but--well, it can’t be helped.”