Mrs. Weyman was paying her daily visit to Grandam in the attic apartment. Usually she went up soon after lunch, because Grandam liked her mornings clear. Clear for what, no one in the family, except Grandam herself, could have said; not even Miss Peters, her nurse-attendant, who might, if any one, be supposed to know how she spent the solitude she so highly prized. But Miss Peters herself was banished for hours every morning and she was neither prying nor curious. “You don’t mind my coming up so early, do you?” Mrs. Weyman inquired belatedly. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” It was obvious that she wasn’t. She had found Grandam lying on her daybed, exquisitely costumed for the day, as usual, looking down across the woods to the Hudson. She hadn’t even a book in her hand. “I felt suddenly in need of sympathy.” She said it charmingly, and settled down in a low chair, which she had drawn close to the daybed. “It’s the girl I want to talk about, of course. Hugh’s Ariel Clare.” “And I’m interested, of course. What’s she like?” “Not bad. Well bred. Better bred than Anne, in fact. But that’s not putting it strongly enough, for Anne’s manners these days are barbarous. It’s nothing about Ariel herself that bothers me. It’s what we are to do with her! The only gauche thing about her is a seeming obsession about her father. She takes it for granted he was a great artist and that this exhibition of his paintings, when it comes off, will edify the entire art world. But Joan assures us it’s all nonsense. The exhibition, if it comes through, will be a farce. And what are we to do then? I don’t believe Ariel has enough actual cash to take her back to Bermuda when it’s all over. And even if she has, she probably won’t want to go. So far as one can discover she hasn’t a relative and hardly a friend in the world,—and no education, no training for anything in particular. That’s what’s so appalling, my dear.” “But Hugh means to help her to something, doesn’t he? Her father surely expected—” “Hugh! That’s just it! Oh, Mother Weyman! Why should Hugh have this absurd sense of responsibility toward a stranger! Hasn’t he enough on his shoulders, poor dear! And what can he do for her, anyway? He’s not wealthy. We spend pretty well what he makes each month. It’s dreadful.” “But he might manage to send her to business school for a year or two. He spoke of that, I believe, if the exhibition should be a disappointment.” “And where would she live? Here? And go in on the early train with Hugh, I suppose! But I won’t let such an absurdity happen. She can’t live here. And Hugh _mustn’t_ finance her. Why should he? It’s too unfair!” Grandam looked at her daughter-in-law with some surprise. Hortense was rarely so intense or emphatic about anything, even big things. And the present problem, if it was a problem, seemed so far, at least, not really serious.