“Oh, no. Never. He didn’t want them to, didn’t even think about the possibilities until Hugh—” But again Hugh was frowning to himself, not coming to her aid with look or word. And she blundered on, “Father did have an exhibition once in a hotel in Hamilton. But only stupid people came and nobody bought. So he didn’t bother with that again. He only thought of it at all because Hugh had put it into his head. But sometimes other artists who had come to Bermuda to paint, and one or two artists who lived there, came to the studio and saw the pictures. They knew how wonderful they were, of course. But most artists are poor—nearly all artists, I guess—and if they couldn’t sell their own pictures, how could they buy Father’s? They couldn’t, of course. But Father was of immense help to them. Because his work was original and he gave them ideas. Showed them their mistakes. Some of them were really quite talented. But Father was different. Father is—was—_is_ a genius....” Mrs. Weyman was looking surprised at something. At what Ariel had said last, perhaps. So Ariel added, “But I don’t have to tell you about that. There’s ‘Noon,’ you see, to prove Father’s genius. Father thought it was the best thing he ever did. Many of his other pictures were important, he knew, very important. But ‘Noon,’ Hugh’s picture, is the best. It satisfied him.” Mrs. Weyman, not she, had brought up the subject of her father’s paintings. Now at last Hugh must tell her what he had done with “Noon”—take her to where it was hung, if it were here in the house and not loaned to an exhibition. They would get up and go to it together. Mrs. Weyman might excuse them, or come too. It didn’t matter. When she stood before it, Ariel would be at home. Her face would be warmed by the noon sun. Now she was chilly. Cold! She turned to Hugh, pale with anticipation. She saw his face suddenly glorified. She had seen it so once before to-day. But now, as then, it was not for her. Mrs. Nevin had come in unannounced and stood there under the white radiance of the chandelier, waiting, with an amused little smile on her lips, for them to become aware of her. On the ship Joan Nevin had been muffled in furs. Even then she had seemed to Ariel the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. But now, in an orchid-colored dinner gown, her coppery hair uncovered, arms, neck and bosom bare, she was startlingly beautiful. “Why, it’s she, who has ‘Noon,’” leapt to Ariel’s mind. “That’s where it is. Hugh bought it for her. Ugh! _Is this hate?_ It _hurts_.” Indeed it did hurt. “God, don’t let me hate. It _hurts_!” Prescott Enderly came forward almost with diffidence to be presented. He was thinking, “I may get to know even Michael Schwankovsky now, if I only manage at all intelligently. God! This is luck!” But God was Enderly’s expletive, not his Creator.