Yet even now when he was at last shaking hands with her Hugh was looking over her head at a group of people a few yards away, with Mrs. Nevin at its center. The big man, the foreign-looking, bearded personage who had come to meet Mrs. Nevin, was beside her, his hand on her arm. He was possessive in his bearing, and openly exuberant that the lady had landed and was for the moment, at least, under his protection. And now a great sheaf of yellow roses in Mrs. Nevin’s arms quite obscured the violets, if, indeed, she still had them. Ariel was conscious that Hugh returned his attention to herself with an almost painful effort. “Your luggage will be under C,” he unnecessarily informed her, and then added with a sudden access of responsibility, “This is the way. We’ll do our best to speed things up in spite of the unlucky popularity of your letter. We’ll grab tea somewhere then, and get right along to Wild Acres, where Mother and Anne are waiting for us. They would have come in to meet you with me—Anne would, anyway—but we’ve got another visitor with us—Prescott Enderly, the novelist. Know his stuff?” And all the while he was skillfully guiding her through a milling crowd of over-anxious people. Chapter IV The younger Weymans had been skiing most of that afternoon with their guest, Prescott Enderly. Although Enderly was Glenn Weyman’s intimate at Yale and only a year or so older, he was a novelist of some notoriety. He had written only one novel, it is true, but during the past summer—the book was published in the spring—it had skyrocketed to fame. Its publishers described it in their advertising as an honest and fearless description of the private life of almost any averagely intelligent college man. Its author was now—except for the necessity of doing some classwork if he were to graduate this year, and taking time out for being a lion—working on a second novel.