Even in Grandam’s apartment it was not easy to see much of Ariel. For when he went up there, evenings, she tactfully left him alone with his grandmother. Monday night when he had protested, “But I’ve come to see you too,” she had surprisingly explained that she wanted to write a letter to Anne and would come back if she finished it. But she had not come back. And why was she writing to Anne? So far as Hugh knew, Anne had paid literally no attention to Ariel at all when Hugh had wanted her to, during the holidays. Of Joan these days it appeared that he could see as much as he liked, but in most unsatisfactory ways. He found himself hovering on the edges of her hospitality to watch her dance and gossip with her kaleidoscopically shifting groups of intimates. From an entire evening spent in thus shadowing her he might be the richer for only one or two alluring but enigmatical glances, or if he was supremely lucky, a few minutes of one-sided intercourse, when Joan drew him out about his business and his own progress, and he waked too late to realize that he had not entered into her world of interests nor been encouraged to do so. To stay away from her altogether would be best. How often he had come to this conclusion! But he was incapable of counting the cost of his love; or at least incapable of acting frugally, once he had counted it. If Joan wanted his friendship, she should have as much of it as she requested. And who would not rather die of starvation one day than go all one’s life without an appetite? While hungering for Joan, Hugh thought much of Ariel. The time when she had been a responsibility peculiarly his seemed passing. For Grandam, Schwankovsky, and now even Joan appeared, suddenly, all inside of a few days, ready, even eager, to assume it on their own accounts. And twice already since Monday Hugh had seen Anne’s writing on envelopes addressed to Ariel. One morning in the next week, Hugh called Brenda Loring on the telephone from his office to invite her to lunch with him. This girl, who from his first meeting with her had made it plain that he interested her, was an interior decorator with an astonishing vogue, considering her age and experience. It was only two or three years since she had graduated from Vassar, and already she had palatial offices of her own on Fifth Avenue, a dozen or more eager assistants, and an income which must be several times the size of Hugh’s. Joan had had a hand in her success. But Miss Loring had been worthy of that patronage, and now she was beyond need of it.