As it happened, the visit to Grandam prolonged itself rather unreasonably. Hugh realized that he had stayed longer than he had meant to or perhaps than he should, considering Joan’s optical invitation to the dance. But he did not take out his watch as he finally went down, and so he was not aware that more than an hour had flown away, while he and Grandam talked of Ariel. And then, at the head of the second flight of stairs he was halted by a laugh, which reached him, like a finger of light, through the blare of the jazz. It came from the wing where the guest rooms were. Curiosity drew him in that direction a few steps. Then he heard it again. Two of the doors in the guest wing were shut, but one stood open upon darkness. That was the room Ariel was occupying. As he paused, puzzled by this strange phenomenon of a girl laughing to herself in the dark, Glenn’s voice impinged on the laugh. Just a word or two, and then Glenn, too, laughed. Hugh strode to the door. The light from the hall penetrated the room enough to show him his brother lying on his elbow across the foot of Ariel’s bed, and the dim figure of Ariel herself, sitting up against the pillows, the eiderdown drawn up to her chin like a tent. The windows were open and the little room was fresh with snowy airiness. Hugh went in. “I say, Glenn, what are you doing here?” He spoke evenly enough but his voice was displeased. “Hello! You back?” Glenn leaned higher on his elbow. “I’m here entertaining Ariel. You asked me to look out for her when I put you on your train, and I’ve been doing my duty ever since. You ought to be gratified to find me at it.” “It must be late. You’d better be at your dance, hadn’t you? And isn’t this getting the house cold?” “Fresh air is the best thing that could happen to this house,” Glenn responded cryptically. “But if you think Joan may catch cold, shut the door. We don’t mind, do we Ariel?” “Well, I want to talk to Ariel myself, since she’s awake. And you do belong down at your own party.” Glenn got up. “Oh, I know I’m probably spoiling the party for poor Joan, absenting myself for so long. I’ll go do my duty by _her_, now that you’ve relieved me of Ariel. Glad you’re back, Hugh. Good night, Ariel.” Glenn’s mockery affected Hugh hardly at all. For the minute he was intent on the things that he must say to Ariel,—at once, now, to-night, since it had so chanced that he was seeing her to-night. “_May_ I stay a few minutes?” he asked. “You aren’t sleepy?” He pushed a chair within a little distance of the bed. Hugh’s generation, no more than Glenn’s, was patterned to a conventional idea of manners, but Hugh himself as an individual had never quite attained the modern casualness. Still, Ariel, tented to her chin in the eiderdown, her face a mere blur in the starry light, was not exactly a figure to inspire self-consciousness in him.