“Well, it doesn’t have to be on the birthday, though that would be nicest. How about to-morrow? That’s your day off, anyway. And you know, of course, that Hugh has broken your engagement with Michael and me. So do make the children ecstatic to-morrow. Nursery tea is at five-thirty. I’ll let him have his birthday cake then.” “Oh, I’m sorry! I should love to. But I’ve promised Hugh all to-morrow. We’re going off on a picnic in his car and won’t be back till after dark, I’m afraid. Too late for the nursery supper, anyway.” Joan’s smile rather stiffened. “Yes? So that’s why he cried you off with us? Hugh was looking for a playmate for himself. But it’s unlike Hugh to be so uncandid. What have you done to him, Ariel?” Ariel could not dream, and Joan herself was astonished, at how much she really wanted to know the true answer to this seemingly lightly asked question. “No. It wasn’t that, I’m sure,” Ariel answered, too ingenuously, Joan thought, to be really ingenuous. “He’s not thinking of himself a bit. He’s worried about me. Says I’m tired. That I ought to be out of doors.” “Sweet of him. And very self-sacrificing!” Joan was flippant, but there was something in those brilliant brown eyes—just glimpsed in them—that rather contradicted flippancy. Tea came in at the moment. When the silver tray with its silver tea service and covered dishes was established between them on a table brought by a second footman, and the men had left the room, Joan sat on for some seconds, her hands clasped around her crossed knees, looking down absently at the food and not stirring to officiate as hostess. But then she laughed abruptly, a delightful, crisp laugh, and drew a cup toward her. “Well, I’ve known Hugh Weyman many years longer than you have, you amusing girl. So you can’t tell me anything to surprise me about the lengths to which his altruism will take him, given a chance. He’s a martyr to every one, his mother, his grandmother, his brother and sister, and now I can very easily take your word for it, he is ready to play the heavy father to you. He thinks he was created to take care of people, poor dear. And if it comes to that, his Creator seems to think so too, by the burdens He has put on him. Cream? Lemon? Ah! When you are a middle-aged old dud like me, Ariel, you’ll take lemon and no sugar, thank you, just like that.” She filled Ariel’s cup one third with cream, and added the two lumps of sugar which Ariel wanted. Then she passed across a dish of hot English muffins. “A muffin too, and dripping with butter!” Joan murmured enviously. “My word, child! While I must content myself with a dry cracker.” But Ariel, to Joan’s secret annoyance, showed no overt surprise that Joan’s beautiful figure needed any such disciplining. She ignored the opportunity for flattery and protested: “Hugh’s not playing father to me, not at all. He wouldn’t think of it, I’m sure. We’re very good, very wonderful friends, Mrs. Nevin.”