But Joan pushed away his gratitude. “You’ve got it wrong. It’s Michael I’m befriending, not Ariel. After an erotic past of thirty or forty odd years, the poor dear is ripe for the attractions of sheer youth, as are most of his kind, not? It may be only a flash in the pan, probably is. But I understand it’s quite real while it lasts. If he goes so far as to marry the little thing, perhaps you won’t then be so thankful I’m helping him. For I prophesy he’ll murder her during the second week of the honeymoon. He’s as fearful of boredom as any creature I ever knew, and by the second week Ariel will be about as stimulating as a milk-shake. So in the end it may be accessory before the fact you’ll accuse me of being.” If Joan had looked at Hugh then! But she didn’t. After a while, “Am I meant to take any of that seriously, Joan?” he asked. “Schwankovsky is sixty-two, you told me. Ariel’s twenty. I don’t like Schwankovsky. Why should I? He despises me and takes no pains to hide it. But he’s being very kind to Ariel. I haven’t liked to see the way he paws her, naturally. But I thought it was just his Bohemian habit. The artistic temperament. And Ariel doesn’t seem to mind. I trusted her instinct: thought he must be all right, do you see, since _she_ wasn’t revolted, no matter what I felt. But if he’s the sort you suggest, then she’s never to so much as shake hands with him again. I’ll attend to it.... But it isn’t so. You were—teasing?” “Teasing! Why should I? But perhaps you misunderstood. The gentleman’s intentions if he has any, of which I’m not after all certain, are honorable. And if that’s so, what’s bothering you? Wouldn’t it be rather a wonderful marriage for such a girl as Ariel? The murder—well, that’ll probably turn into a divorce. Dear old Michael wouldn’t hurt a fly, you know, much less a tender young _mädchen_. It seems to me that Ariel has all to gain.” “Please don’t. It isn’t funny. And I shall see that they don’t go on meeting. It’s horrible.” “And the exhibition?” Joan asked. Hugh consigned the exhibition to perdition with a breath. “I’ll take that over,” he said, “and do my best with it.” “You!” Joan laughed. “You’d make a funny art patron, Hugh! Besides, I’m afraid that this particular exhibition needs more money as well as more authority than you happen to be able to bring to it. But if you are as earnest as you sound, or even half as earnest, I might take sides with you, push Michael into giving up the exhibition, and separate spring and winter. How about it? Do you want my help?”