In her short cut home through the woods, no white and yellow violets gave to Ariel’s eyes or feet a path into faërie. She had lost faërie for that day, lost it to quite a bewildering degree. Chapter XXII The morning of the Gregory Clare exhibition Hugh was waked by the clangor of birds in Wild Acres woods. The window by Hugh’s bed held the view like a picture frame. Sleepily, he thought it a pity they couldn’t hang this in the exhibition. It was quite in the Gregory Clare manner. But something was missing from it. The painter’s daughter. Where would he, Hugh, put her, if he were the painter? There at the right, where the sunlight was silvery in the tops of the giant beech, her head not quite level with the highest branch, standing still on the breathless, silvery-green-gold air. Hugh was to meet his mother in town for lunch and be with her at the New Texas Galleries in time for the opening of the doors. Joan had offered to drive Ariel in directly after lunch, and get her there in good time for the opening also. That was kind of Joan. Remembering and appreciating this kindness of Joan’s was Hugh’s first thought of her this morning. He noticed, just in passing, this surprising fact. When before had he ever been awake for any length of time without thinking of Joan! And now she had come only in connection with Ariel and the exhibition. Certainly to sail coolly into town in Joan’s open roadster would be far better for Ariel than traveling in alone on the stuffy local. It promised, already, to be a very warm day. Hugh regretted, however, that Grandam had not taken his suggestion of sending Ariel in for lunch with his mother and himself. She might be devoted to Ariel, but working her to death was a strange way of showing it. Ariel had been very quiet as to what she felt about this great day herself; but Hugh knew it to be one of the most exciting and exhilarating days of her life. He lay down again. It was very early, just past dawn. He half imagined, half dreamed himself waiting for Ariel in the little anteroom of the galleries, her arrival, pale with excitement, and his rising to steady her and share in her feelings of elation and joy. Taking her arm through his and holding her hand steadily and firmly under his elbow against his side, they mixed with the crowd which was genuflecting and chattering before her father’s genius.