Joan laughed tolerantly. “Well, I haven’t got him to look at them. I don’t even know where they are, in fact. And I’m glad I don’t. After the sample you showed me! But there’s nothing to keep _you_ from pulling wires for Ariel, if you like. Why, you might even get Michael as a patron for the event. What a delicious idea!” Schwankovsky joined them at this point in their conversation of cross-purposes. The music had fallen mercifully silent for the minute. Joan took the big man possessively by the arm. “I invited Hugh here to-night,” she began, explaining to him, “to see me. But he’s not interested in me. Only in some wretched little artist’s exhibition. I suspect he means to tackle you next, Michael.—Better first-hand than second-hand, Hugh.—But I’m warning you, Michael! Hugh’s on the prowl for strings to pull to-night. He’s all on the make—for the artist’s daughter.” Having thus made things, as she thought, simple for her simple friend, Joan gave herself up to the arms of a new partner simultaneously with the reawakening of the electrola to a fresh burst of racket. Hugh had not the slightest idea of how he had managed it, but, plainly, during their brief moments of contact he had irritated Joan beyond endurance. And now he must gather up the pieces of himself which she had left and be coherent for his involuntary host. “It’s only the Clare pictures I was discussing with Joan,” he explained. “I thought she had had something to do with your interest in them.” “The Clare pictures! What do you know about the Clare pictures, if you please, Mr. Weyman? Or Mrs. Nevin, for the matter of that? Kindly tell me!” The big man was openly annoyed. “What do I know? Well, not much. Except, of course, that you’ve taken ’em on.” “Who told you that?” “Charlie Frye wrote it to us. Since then, we’ve heard nothing.” “Charlie Frye! Young idiot! Now why should he go around telling this, when I particularly requested that he shouldn’t?” “Well, of course, he had to let _us_ know! Naturally we—” “Pff. Since it’s out, it’s out. No matter. Only it was going to be something of a satisfaction, springing an exhibition like that on New York. But now you and Joan know! Probably he’s told everybody. Well, I don’t suppose it really matters—” He blustered off without another word or look, leaving Hugh stranded. Didn’t Schwankovsky know that Ariel was at Wild Acres with the Weymans? That Hugh was her host? Apparently not. Miss Loring, seeing Hugh so suddenly and unequivocally disengaged, forsook her own group by the buffet and started to insinuate her way through the room toward him.