The children were “hush” themselves, following with Ariel where that path would lead. But Joan, taking no account of “hush,” put up a hand from her side of the wall and took hold of Persis’s blue skirt. “It’s a nice story, I know, ducks, but Miss Clare will finish it for you some other time perhaps. I want her to come up to the house and have tea with me now. And Alice, I don’t approve of the children sitting around quietly like this in the damp. It’s not summer yet. I want them to exercise. Get them to playing some game at once, or take them for a walk. I thought I had made it clear.” Persis was the first to realize the bitterness of their sudden loss. She wailed, “Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Ariel, when will you finish? Will you come back? When will you show us the path? Will you dance for us in faërie when we get there? You do mean to take us with you, don’t you? I thought soon you would begin to dance. Oh, Ariel! Oh, dear!” “Please come, Ariel. I’m famished for society. Besides, I’ve special things I want to talk about.” Alice had hurried her charges down from the wall. But the children were walking away backwards, their longing eyes on Ariel. “We’ll look for the path next time,” she called after them, and it sounded to their ears like a promise of the sort that keeps itself. “And we’ll all dance in faërie. Good-by, Alice.” “I don’t know about having tea,” Ariel looked down at Joan from the wall doubtfully. “I must be back by five—” “Oh, that’s all right. We’ll have it now, early. Do come along.” Joan pulled Ariel’s arm through her own, when she jumped down and stood beside her in Holly. Then she drew her, not entirely unresisting, up toward the house. It had been mere impulse on Joan’s part, but now that for the first time in their acquaintance she was to have an hour alone with Ariel she would do what she so well had the power of doing, throw herself, the whole concentrated weight of her personality, into the contact,—put her own stamp upon the coin of the moment as Ariel had put hers, Joan rather rebelliously felt, on her contacts with Persis and Nicky. Now that the opportunity had practically imposed itself upon her, she was decided, once for all, to waste no more time about finding Ariel out. She would discover her charm. Or she would discover what passed for charm with Schwankovsky, ruthless where personalities were concerned: with Grandam, so ultra-fastidious: with Joan’s own children, whom until to-day she had thought rather typical neurotic American products. And even perhaps with Hugh, so undiscerning, except where she, Joan, was concerned.