Meanwhile, Rickman's poem, or rather the first two Acts of his neo-classic drama, _Helen in Leuce_, lay on Lucia's lap. Jewdwine had obtained it under protest and with much secrecy. He had promised Rickman, solemnly, not to show it to a soul; but he had shown it to Lucia. It was all right, he said, so long as he refrained from disclosing the name of the person who had written it. Not that she would have been any the wiser if he had. "And it was you who discovered him?" Her voice lingered with a peculiarly tender and agreeable vibration on the "you." He closed his eyes and let that, too, sink into him. "Yes," he murmured, "nobody else has had a hand in it--as yet." "And what are you going to do with him now you have discovered him?" He opened his eyes, startled by the uncomfortable suggestion. It had not yet occurred to him that the discovery of Rickman could entail any responsibility whatever. "I don't know that I'm going to do anything with him. Unless some day I use him for an article." "Oh, Horace, is that the way you treat your friends?" He smiled. "Yes Lucy, sometimes, when they deserve it." "You haven't told me your friend's name?" "No. I betrayed his innocent confidence sufficiently in showing you his play. I can't tell you his name." "After all, his name doesn't matter." "No, it doesn't matter. Very likely you'll hear enough of it some day. You haven't told me what you think of him." "I don't know what I think--But then, I don't know him." "No," he said, roused to interest by her hesitation, "you don't know him. That's the beauty of it." She gave the manuscript back into his hands. "Take him away. He makes me feel uncomfortable." "To tell the truth, Lucy, he makes me feel uncomfortable, too." "Why?" "Well, when you think you've got hold of a genius, and you take him up and stake your reputation on him--and all the time you can't be sure whether it's a spark of the divine fire or a mere flash in the pan. It happens over and over again. The burnt critic dreads the divine fire." His eyes were fixed on the title page as if fascinated by the words, _Helen in Leuce_. "But this is not bad--it's _not_ bad for two and twenty." "Only two and twenty?" "That's all. It looks as if he were made for immortality." She turned to him that ardent gaze which made the hot day hotter. "Dear Horace, you're going to do great things for him." The worst of having a cousin who adores you is that magnificence is expected of you, regularly and as a matter of course. He was not even sure that Lucia did not credit him with power to work miracles. The idea was flattering but also somewhat inconvenient. "I don't know about great things. I should like to do something. The question is what. He's a little unfortunate in--in his surroundings, and he's been ill, poor fellow. If one could give him a change. If one were only rich and could afford to send him abroad for a year. I _had_ thought of asking him down to Oxford." "And why didn't you?"