“Oh? He said it was drafty, I think. He was cold. Wanted to sit by the fire.” Her eyes were eating up the pages of her letter. Hugh hesitated by her side another minute, then turned away. Ariel called him back. “Excuse my rudeness,” she begged. “But you see—this letter! It’s so awfully important! It’s from Charlie Frye!” “Oh, is it!” Hugh was very much interested at once. Ariel went to him and stood so that he could read with her, over her shoulder. After a minute of following the small, printlike script that was Charlie Frye’s handwriting, he suddenly cried out himself with pleased excitement. “But this is stupendous! Do you realize? It’s Michael Schwankovsky himself!” “Yes.” Ariel flapped over one sheet and went on to the next. “Of course. But do you think Charlie ought to hand over the thing to him so absolutely? Would Father like that?” “But of course he would. Why, Ariel! It’s the best thing in the world that could happen to us and to your father’s pictures. Don’t you know? Don’t you see? If any one can make an exhibit a go, Schwankovsky is that one. The old boy’s as rich as Crœsus too, and will buy some of them himself if he’s this interested. And he’ll exhibit in the New Texas Galleries, I bet you anything! Frye, if he’d been lucky, might have secured a little space in the Opportunity Gallery perhaps. Yes—I was right. Here ’tis. The New Texas Galleries. And for one week! Ye gods, Ariel! Our fortune’s made! And Gregory Clare’s name!” That the news was, in all truth, stupendous Ariel knew as well as Hugh. Michael Schwankovsky had by chance seen some of the Gregory Clare pictures in Charlie’s New York studio, and straightway offered to sponsor and finance the “whole show.” That meant that he had recognized her father’s great genius at sight. She cried, suddenly clapping her hands like a child, “Think of it! Michael Schwankovsky! And in spite of Mrs. Nevin!” Hugh looked at Ariel in quick surprise. Now why had she said that? Why was she so delighted that this great luck had befallen the exhibition _in spite of Joan_? But was it in spite of Joan? Now that Ariel had reminded him of her, Hugh saw that it was Joan who had done it all. Bless her! And it was rather wonderful of her not to have told him last night. She had sent her friend, Schwankovsky, to Frye’s studio with just this end in view.